Martin Lawrenson boosted by high potato prices

We managed to drill our first winter wheat on 18 February, just four months later than we had hoped. After a couple of good drying days, we decided to give it a go. The seed-bed was actually pretty good with the drill combination following the plough.

We have drilled Alchemy at this time before and it did pretty well and definitely still outperforms spring wheat. Within an hour of the drill leaving the field, a flock of crows arrived and began to undo our good work. Attracted by the odd grain on top, they started digging up the buried seed. As I watched I had to admire that these birds, who we hadn’t seen for weeks, found our crop almost immediately after we had left.

I returned to the farm and set about finding the old bird banger, but I suddenly remembered I had decided to put it in a collective sale last year as it had become unreliable. I picked up an ex-display one that had a bit of discount on it from a local merchant. One battery and a bottle of gas later and we were up and running. Every hour it sounds like the Alamo and even if it doesn’t keep all the pesky birds away, it should at least give them a headache.

We have been filling a few loads of potatoes over the past couple of weeks even though I had decided to hold on to them for a while. There seems to be good demand and the price seems to be edging upwards, but as ever, when they are a decent price the barn seems to empty much faster than usual. We haven’t started on our box store yet, and hopefully when we do, the price should have improved even further.

Farmer Focus Arable: Martin Lawrenson