Thank you to those who emailed me last month after I discussed how I did not get my grain marketing strategy as good as I would have liked. Knowing you’re not alone helps a great deal.

On the same theme, it looks like I’ve also got my fertiliser purchasing wrong. As of this morning, ammonium nitrate is £130/t cheaper than the price when I ordered it. How do you predict a year in farming?

See also: Researchers on a mission to wipe out blackgrass with novel tech

About the author

Keith Challen

Arable Farmer Focus writer

Keith Challen manages 1,200ha of heavy clay soils in the Vale of Belvoir, Leicestershire, for Belvoir Farming Company. Cropping includes wheat, oilseed rape and elderflowers. The farm is also home to the Belvoir Fruit Farms drinks business.

Read more articles by Keith Challen

On the whole the farm looks well, although some of the most waterlogged ground suffered from frost heave last month and has dramatically reduced tiller numbers.

Luckily, this only amounts to a small acreage, but it highlights the importance of drainage and probably shows why it was grassland until the 1980s.

The lack of rain in February is a welcome respite and hopefully will allow us to make a start on top-dressing and applying trace elements. It feels a little early, but when the weather is with you, it makes sense to make a start.

We unfortunately didn’t get all our forestry work done, or quite get through enough workshop projects.

We did get some training done, including “How to weld uphill”, which is something I’ve struggled with for many years.

Hopefully, over the next couple of weeks we will start spring drilling. We haven’t got much to do as seed-beds have slumped. It won’t be pretty.

Usually, we just drill straight in with a home-made tine drill, but this year we will have to work it first.

Last month marked 10 years since our beautiful daughter Emily was tragically killed in a car accident.

No words will every describe the pain of losing a child. To channel our heartache and grief, Emily’s brother and sister have decided to give back to a charity close to our hearts, called Brake.

On 3 June they will be parachuting out of a plane in memory of Emily.

We are grateful to anyone who can spare the time to read our Just Giving page and donate to this amazing charity.