Archive Article: 2000/06/16

16 June 2000

Ron Duncan

Ron Duncan farms 222ha

(550 acres) in partnership

with his wife and eldest son

at Begrow Farms, Duffus,

Elgin, Moray. Crops include

winter wheat, spring barley,

swedes and beetroot,

alongside a pedigree

Limousin suckler herd

AS I write, I am watching news of severe flooding in large areas of Yorks and Co Durham.

That makes our seemingly monthly monsoon of 44mm (1.7in) in 30 hours at the end of May seem insignificant. But it was enough to flood lots of fields again including the "sore bits" from last months rain, which everyone had resown. Up until five years ago, Morayshire had an annual rainfall of 600mm (24in). We now average over 800mm (32in).

Before the May monsoon we did enjoy some wonderful sunny weather which allowed us to cultivate, deep ridge and de-stone land for swedes and beetroot. Both were sown in perfect order and came through the ground in five days.

Chemical programmes for these crops have not changed for some time. Swedes receive trifluralin at 2.3 litres/ha pre-sowing for weed control and 16kg/ha of Rampart (carbofuran) granules are applied with the drill to combat first generation cabbage root fly. Soon after sowing 9 litres/ha of propachlor is applied for any late germinating weeds. Obviously, moisture to make these pre-ems work was not a problem this year.

The beetroot programme is much simpler. Within a week of sowing we applied Goltix (metamitron) at 1.7kg/ha with

Perfect conditions for drilling swedes and beetroot at Begrow Farms, Morayshire, left grower Ron Duncan smiling. But the rain soon returned.