April

Hello there , how are you all doing? I have to apologise for the lateness of this April blog.

I did try very hard to get it in on time , but after having spent a great deal of time writing it and most impressive ly of all, typing it, I scrolled down to the bottom of my work to that little button that say’s SAVE . Save my A…… . Oh no , I politely said to myself as the screen went blank and two hours of highly charged rant disappeared into cyber nothingness !!I!!!!!!!    I could not believe it ,what is it about computers ? I am sure I could here the little b…….. laughing at me as I sat there with steam escaping violently from my ears ,nose and probably every other orifice. Although I new in my heart what had happened and that my masterpiece was lost forever , I still found myself trying to locate it in different files or places within the website, as if the computer was going to let me off ! Guess what happened next....exactly.
 
Anyway I’m over it now ( yeah right ). Actually I'm not, and as I've lost that sense of spontanaeity and conviction that drove me to write it in the first place , I will instead calmly tell you about how every thing is doing crop wise on the farm at this point in time.
 
Lets start with the winter wheat , we have 180 acres in the ground at the moment and it looks a treat. It has a lovely deep greenness of colour which shows that it's disease free and growing nicely, so if you could see it close up , you would see that there are a good amount of tillers now fully established, and these  are vital for obtaining that all important high yield.
 
Winter barley next , this is grown on our share farmed farm called Whitechapel Farm at Oldford Nr Frome.This variety is called Cassata and if grown to the correct spec can be sold for malting, which means more great English beer...Hurrah!!!. We had great difficulty planting some of this crop due to the terrible weather we experienced last Autumn, consequently it went in late and so took along time to get established and so some of the fields don’t look to special. However we must try and make sure it grades for malting and secure the contracted price to maintain the margin. Fingers crossed !#
 
The spring barley ,variety called Tipple (great name for a malting barley) is looking very well , in some cases probably too well . What I mean by this is that on certain fields , before we ploughed them we spread chicken manure and we inadvertently put it on too thick so the barley is growing really well but it will be too thick . Why is this a bad thing I hear you ask ? Well, when the crop becomes very thick it looses its individuality and becomes a mass if you like ,the plants then become weaker and depend on their neighbour to prop them up. Upon heavy wind and rain the crop is then prone to being blown down flat and this means that it becomes low to the ground where there is moisture and warmth this can then lead to premature germination of the seed in the head. This renders the crop useless for malting and in some very serious cases for feed as well. Lets hope we don’t encounter such weather again this year !
 
Last, but most important of all, our oilseed rape. As you will know from my previous Blogs our rape is looking very good at the moment,however there is still a long way to go before we are able to cut it and still plenty of time for disasters to happen.The rape is now starting to loose its petals (petal fall) as its coming to the end of its six weeks flowering,this will be a great relief to loads of you that suffer from hayfever. By the way, if you do have a problem with rapeseed pollen try eating local rapeseed honey, lots of people have told me that it has really helped relieve their symptoms.
 
As sales of Fussels oils, dressings and Mayonnaises continue to grow, it is imperative that we maintain a high yield and quality to ensure that we will have enough seed for the weeks and months ahead and as you can see from the photo of our featured field, things are looking good so far .
 
Don’t forget to log on to FROME FM on Sunday 24th may 10.30 for Fussell on Farming , my half hour internet radio show ,when my guest this week will be local well known and well respected dairy farmer Richard Arney, ( who no doubt will be trying to convince me that we arable farmers have it all to easy compared to the Dairy farming fraternity ) which should be very informative and hopefully a lot of fun Speak to you then...Andy.