The autumn drilling campaign marched along even better than harvest, with the brakes only really being applied when it finally rained on 20 October.

The last little bit could take as long as the bulk of it, after finally getting a sensible amount of rain the other weekend and a showery few days since.

See also: Direct-drilling wheat into clover ley saves farm £100/ha

About the author

Matt Redman

Farmer Focus writer

Matt Redman farms 370ha just north of Cambridge and operates a contracting business specialising in spraying and direct-drilling. He also grows cereals on a small area of tenancy land and was Farm Sprayer Operator of the Year in 2014.

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Email: office@mattredmanag.co.uk

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With such a dry drilling campaign, and very little rain here between harvest and getting started, there was very little blackgrass or volunteer germination that could come back to bite us later.

But confidence in leaving it all until late October in the past resulted in burnt fingers and lots of spring cropping. 

My worst blackgrass fields should be drilled by now, having left them until the very last to be drilled.

This was in the knowledge that if it did become too wet then the gate could be shut, and they would be spring cropped.

I was also happy that the bulk of the farm was drilled, rolled and sprayed in good conditions and looking well going into winter.

This gives me some confidence that the rent and fertiliser invoices for the year will be covered.

Pre-drilling glyphosate and pre-emergences have been tricky, with the rapid pace of drilling, windy conditions, warm soils and surprisingly rapid emergence of crops in some fairly dry seed-beds.

However, seed-beds have been very good, which will, hopefully, mean the effect of dry and warm conditions is mitigated slightly.

Chemistry wise, Crystal (flufenacet + pendimethalin) has been the main pre-emergence herbicide again this year, although I have tried some Luximo (cinmethylin) on the worst blackgrass fields.

All cereals have had Avadex (tri-allate), as it seems to work well in the blackgrass stack, and on the wild oats and brome starting to creep in.

Winter linseed is back again, along with winter beans, but the last minute – against the plan – dabble into OSR again was a mistake.

It was too dry, and the forecasted rain never came, so emergence was slow to non-existent until far too late. It has been redrilled with wheat or winter beans.

The aim was to have 50/50 wheat and break crop, but there will have to be some second wheat or barley drilled next year now.