Farmer Focus: Welcome rain for reseeds and sprucing up silage pits

The rain came at last and saved the day. The last week in May we had plenty of showers to give our fields a good old soak, and it brought some colour and grass, back to our south-facing sides.

The reseeding fields we sowed in mid-May were glad to receive the rain and are well on their way.

See also: Top tips on direct-drilling for grassland farmers

About the author

Dafydd Parry Jones

Dafydd Parry Jones and wife Glenys, Machynlleth, Powys, run a closed flock of 750 Texel and Aberfield cross ewes and 70 Hereford cross sucklers cows on 180ha. Their upland organic system uses Hereford bulls, Charollais terminal sires and red clover silage, multispecies leys and rotational grazing.

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However, the dry conditions have given us an opportunity to get a great deal of jobs done.

The farm handler could venture onto slopes that have been inaccessible for two years.

We were able to clear fallen trees and branches, and we had a tree surgeon in to cut down some dangerous ash trees that showed signs of disease.

Fencing contractors have been with us for several weeks and we had some much-needed work done.

Wet weather then created ideal conditions to spend a few days on the pressure washer, cleaning up the farm buildings – and getting the silage pits ready for action.

The first few days in June we had a small opportunity to have a few fields of red clover silage in, from the fields sown during the past two years.

We needed the quality silage, and it was beneficial to the survival of the clover that it’s not kept growing too long.

All my weather updates for essential work now come from my BBC app on the iPhone. In the past, the BBC weather on the television was my first port of call.

But I found the forecast to be very vague compared with the app. And if you live west of Birmingham, it became totally useless as the city’s name covered most of our area.

A few trailer loads of finished cattle have gone to slaughter over the past few weeks.

After a few months of very little money coming in, this was a welcome boost to cashflow, especially with the prices at the moment.

With the lambs performing well over the fine spring, our ambition is to get a few more loads to slaughter this month.

We do hope the prices will remain steady to turn the good weight gains into financial gains.

Every little helps to pay our contracting – and all other – bills and keep the local economy going.