Expensive winter looms for David Richardson

The other day I was cambridge rolling land behind the oilseed rape drill, while others completed combining the last couple of fields of wheat. As I did so, I contemplated the year just ending and cast my mind forward to the one ahead. To begin with I was dissatisfied with the job I was doing.

Regular readers of these columns may remember we’ve not grown rape on this farm for a few years, having despaired at the task of limiting pigeon damage. But last year’s crops on neighbours’ farms, established in early to mid-August and going into winter, were well grown and thick as cress and escaped the kind of damage previously experienced.

Rapeseed values also increased to tantalising levels and we allowed ourselves to be persuaded to give the crop another go. Furthermore, we even ordered high erucic acid (HEAR) seed in the hope of an additional bonus. It was the most expensive seed we’d ever purchased.

Then came harvest – the wettest on record, even in this relatively fortunate eastern side of the country. The land was saturated and too wet to carry a combine and trailers full of grain. But needs must and crops had to be harvested. As I said, the job got done, but not without scarring stubbles with ruts in spots where drains had failed to take the excess water to the ditches.

Ploughing land that was wet in the hope of making a seed-bed was clearly a no-no. It would have exposed wet, leathery clay that would quickly become unbreakable clods – just the habitat most appreciated by slugs, which have enjoyed a bumper breeding season. So, we decided to drill straight into stubbles and leave as much of the wet soil as possible where it was. We mixed slug pellets with the seed to discourage the rubbery predators as early as possible.

This was the land I was rolling. But like the cultivator drill that had preceded me, I found myself having to go around wet spots to avoid getting stuck. The soil would have “licked” on to the rolls in any case even if those areas could have been drilled. There are few more satisfying jobs than sitting on a tractor pulling an implement doing a first-class job. But my rolling fell far short of that and I wondered just what sort of crop we’d end up with next year.

As I continued to the bitter end, hundreds of pigeons flocked around me in what I could only assume was a reconnaissance to check where the easiest pickings will be in a few weeks. I hate the cheeky so and so’s and I read recently that even the British Trust for Ornithology has admitted there are too many of them.

Hundreds of pigeons flocked around me in what I could only assume was a reconnaissance to check where the easiest pickings will be in a few weeks

Very soon we shall be drilling winter wheat and we will also have to try to protect those crops against slugs. It’s going to be an expensive winter. A farmer near here has just spread the second dose of slug pellets on his rape and I daresay the wheats will need the same sort of attention. I wonder what will happen if we reach the new upper limit on slug pellet applications? Will we just have to watch slugs eat the crops?

Blackgrass also looks like being a worse problem in the coming year than before and once again there are limitations on what products can be used to control it.

As I rode the tractor thinking about all this, I decided I wasn’t looking forward to the next 12 months.

David Richardson farms about 400ha (1,000 acres) of arable land near Norwich in Norfolk in partnership with his wife, Lorna. His son, Rob, is farm manager.

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