The last quarter of 2023 has been one storm after another, meaning that despite below average rainfall at the end of September, the 549mm since then has taken our annual total to 1,110mm. That is well above the 912mm average. 

It feels like an achievement to have survived the weather and financial challenges of the past 12 months, with reasonable yields at harvest and good livestock performance allowing a profit. 

It is a testament to the work put in by our staff that we have well established winter crops, despite the conditions.

See also: Pointers on rescuing waterlogged soils for spring barley

About the author

Robert Drysdale

Arable Farmer Focus writer

Robert Drysdale is farm manager at Monymusk Estate, growing winter and spring barley, wheat and oilseed rape across 1600ha on 4 contract farming agreements to the south of Inverurie in Aberdeenshire. The farm also has 130 beef cows running on land that is less suitable for crop production with the majority of calves being finished on the farm.

Read more articles by Robert Drysdale

Looking ahead to the coming season, we are currently on the back foot, with less than 10% of the spring cropping land ploughed, and soils as wet as I have ever seen.

The trend recently has been for dry springs, so hopefully that will be the case again this year and we will get caught up. 

I am certainly hoping for a year with more sun and less rain. I would also like to see some honesty, leadership and ambition from our politicians, though past performance would indicate this is unlikely.

It feels as if we have been treading water in this country while the rest of the world moves on, and the continued lack of detail on future policy in Scotland is only prolonging the situation. 

We should be expanding our production and maximising high value exports, capitalising on our reputation around the world for quality produce. 

The continued decline in our productive base, particularly of livestock, while imports increase is a sad situation to see, and will not drive forward the rural economy or provide a future for the next generation.

Having received results of our carbon audit for 2023 production, it is pleasing to see that since 2019, our emissions/kg of output are down by 17.5%.

I need to look at the detail to see if this is driven by seasonal factors such as yield, or more long-term reductions in fuel, through changes in cultivation and fertiliser from increased use of cover crops and manures.

I suspect it will be a bit of both.