Farmer Focus: We demonise the plough at our peril
© Jason Bye I posted about my new plough being delivered on social media the other day, which caused a bit of a stir and a bit of a debate.
In the absence of herbicides, rotational ploughing is a powerful tool.
If used shallowly in appropriate conditions, (as long as you are building more organic matter than you are burning – see leys, green manures, mixed farming and so on) it should be celebrated.
See also: Top-yielding new wheat variety is a success on Suffolk farm
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Diversity in everything, even in cultivations. Hallelujah! We demonise it at our peril.
For all of you who are Groundswell event devotees (I count myself as one even though I am a miserable ground-disturbing sinner), can I take this opportunity to suggest a new event for your calendar to compliment the former.
It’s called Gathering and the first one has just taken place at Wild Ken Hill in Norfolk.
More consumer- and environment-facing possibly than the Royston offering, but exactly the people we should be engaging with. Do look out for it next year. As my children (sorry, young adults) would say, you’re welcome.
Dry weather at the time of blackgrass flowering means less dormancy of its seed.
I can certainly testify to this fact as the early forced seed-bed we created to get an oilseed rape trial plot drilled in, is now in a sea of the stuff.
The rows of rapeseed, berseem clover, buckwheat and fenugreek are getting bolder and bolder by the day, so as soon as I get the chance to inter-row the miserable situation the better.
Green manures of red, Persian, crimson and berseem clovers with some buckwheat, mustard, vetches and phaecelia were sown and are up.
We direct drilled 10kg/ha of red clover, which has emerged in between stubble rows to boost my partially failed May undersown sheep grazing leys, which withered in the drought.
This should get us back on track in the most important slot in our organic rotation – fertility building.
