Drought fears intensify after scorching April

Farmers in parts of the UK are warning of rising crop stress as an exceptionally dry spring threatens to reverse gains made following one of the wettest winters in recent memory.

The dramatic swing in conditions – from waterlogged fields to parched soils – has left many arable growers fearing a difficult season ahead.

After months of relentless winter rain that delayed fieldwork and saturated soils, large parts of the country have now gone almost three months with little meaningful rainfall. April has been particularly dry and unusually warm, intensifying concerns over drought in key arable regions.

At Water Lane Farm in Tarbock, Merseyside, arable farmer Olly Harrison said spring cereals drilled in February were “now desperate for a drink”, while those sown later in March were performing slightly better.

See also: Crop Watch: Pre-em sprays struggle in dry East and T2s in barley

The farm recorded just 55.25mm of rain between February and April – barely half the 83.25mm logged during June to August 1976, during one of the UK’s most notorious drought years.

Olly’s father, Thomas, who has kept rainfall records for more than 50 years, said: “We desperately need rain, but with these climatic conditions swinging from one extreme to the next, we have to be careful what we wish for.”

Farmer’s SFI reprieve

Colin Rayner, a mixed farmer in Horton, Berkshire, said he was relieved to have committed more than half of his farm’s acreage to Defra’s Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) this year.

With just 50ha of spring barley drilled, he said the decision to scale back was a wise one given current conditions. “If I’d planted 1,000ha, I wouldn’t be sleeping at night,” he said.

“The weather is totally bonkers,” Mr Rayner added. “We don’t get weather this good during harvest or silage making.”

Andrew Blenkiron, managing director of the 9,000ha Elveden Estate on the Suffolk-Norfolk border, described the situation as “incredibly dry and becoming slightly concerning”.

The estate has had just 20mm of rain in 10 weeks – about a third of the norm – leaving a soil moisture deficit of 80mm. “It’s all hands to the pumps,” he said. “We’ve got 48 reels and irrigators running.”

He added: “The Breckland farmer’s prayer is a shower of rain every night and a shower of fertiliser on a Sunday.”

Across the regions

The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) said 17 river catchments in Scotland are now at Alert level for water scarcity, warning that conditions are “deteriorating rapidly” due to continued dry weather and below-average rainfall across much of the country.

Aberdeenshire farmer Rodney Blackhall said his spring crops were looking good for now, but the water table was “very low” and “could do with a shower of rain”.

However, not all areas are as dry. Farmers in South Wales have reported between 85mm and 130mm of rain in recent weeks.

The Met Office expects more typical weather in May, with “a little rain possible, certainly in the South”, but many areas will remain dry. “It is going to be cooler,” a spokesman said, with a mix of rain, sunshine and occasional thundery showers possible earlier in the month.