Farmer Focus: Why are CSF reports only valid for two years?

The past five weeks have been productive. We have applied all the fertiliser to the winter barley and have one dose left to do on the winter wheat.

Digestate spreading has also gone well. Winter barley received most of its nutrition this way. The first spring wheat has been spread, and we will soon be concentrating on maize seedbed application.

The war is still having large impacts on energy prices, with red diesel nearly doubling and fertiliser at a similar level.

See also: Why micronutrition is essential for nitrogen use efficiency

About the author

Robin Aird

Arable Farmer Focus writer Robin Aird manages 1,500ha on the north Wiltshire and Gloucestershire border, with a further 160ha on a contract farming agreement. Soils vary from gravel to clay with the majority silty clay loams. The diverse estate has Residential, commercial and events enterprises. He is Basis qualified and advises on other farming businesses.

Contact:

Email: robin.aird@charltonpark.estate

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Financially, this will have a small impact this year but the potential increase on next year’s crops, along with poor crop prices, will result in some substantial changes in planting plans if this continues.

I was disappointed to read that, as soon as the new capital grants application came out, the Catchment Sensitive Farming (CSF) advisers had no availability to see anyone.

I find it quite strange how their report is only valid for two years. Surely, if the report shows areas for improvements that have not been made in previous rounds the report should still be valid for the new rounds. Hopefully, common sense will prevail on this issue.

Spring wheat has been drilled, rolled and had Avadex (tri-allate) applied. We also applied fertiliser to the seed-bed.

Thoughts are now turning to fungicide choices and timings; the winter wheat will be having a tebuconazole to tidy up any patches of rust and will also have a good slug of manganese as well as some growth regulation.

The winter barley will be similar, but we will change the tebuconazole for a mixture based on prothioconazole.

Most crops look clean, however we have scorched the crops a little with fertiliser. This tends to be in the wetter areas as the crop was a bit stressed. Hopefully, it will grow away over the next few weeks.