May 2011

Hi everybody,

Well the sun has certainly had his hat well and truly on! For most people it has been a great spell of weather and it was for farmers everywhere, to start with, but the dry spell was too long for most of the farming community.

By the time people read this we will hopefully have had some precipitation. We as farmers always get accused of moaning about the weather, that it is never right, well this happens because it controls such a huge part of our livelihood and we have absolutely no control over it! Plus we have to have something to talk about in the pub !!

Weather windows seem to get smaller and the weather seems to be all or nothing, so we as farmers have to be constantly watching and analysing to try and make the right choices of whether to plant, cut silage, hay, spread muck or slurry, cultivate ground, spray, bale and harvest at the correct time. The smallest miss in timing can result in huge problems and costs. It can be very frustrating whatever sector of farming you are in.
We, in this area have actually been very lucky compared to some of our colleagues in the East, where there are some horror stories floating about of farmers losing 250 ha of oilseed rape (600 acres, that’s bigger than the whole of my farming area) plus big areas of sugar beet being re-drilled.
That’s enough, time to move on.
What’s been happening and where are we up to in the year, I hear you shouting at me from your kitchen table, bed or wherever you are reading this from. Well, the oilseed rape that has been so vibrantly yellow lately has finished flowering and has nearly dropped all its petals. So, the pods should be starting to develop and fill (hopefully)with lots of seed for what looks like to be an early-ish harvest, starting mid July. All of our crop will go into Fussels Fine Foods this year, to produce loads of culinary delights(hopefully).

Our Barley is out in ear, if you look at the fields on both sides of straight lane down by the burnt barn, on the way to the A36, you can see the new, very fine awns, stuck up and swirling in the wind rather like ripples on a shiny, still pond. One of the most crucial times is now upon the barley and that is the filling of the berry and the ear. The results from this period produce the YIELD of the whole crop. Yes you’ve guessed! its entirely down to weather conditions as to the outcome.

The wheat is at flag leaf stage, it is vital that we keep a very vigilant eye on the flag leaf, it is the ‘heart’ of the plant and its condition and longevity are crucial in the yield of the crop. The sprayer then will have a bit more work to do before harvest. The wheat has though, had all its requirement of fertilizer for this year.

Sunflowers have been planted at a depth of 2 inches, which is not as deep as last year, as they took along time to emerge and so got behind and were very vulnerable to pests such as flee beetle and pigeons. Hopefully when they flower they will give everybody a great sight to see and probably a few great photos. The sunflowers will have no fertilizer applied  as a small amount of chicken manure was spread on the ground pre- ploughing and subsequent planting. The spraying of this crop will only be in the form of a herbicide early on to reduce weed competition .They will not be harvested until October.

Finally the grass has grown reasonably well on our little acreage of permanent pasture and the new leys that we planted in the autumn last year. We will be making hay from this grass and depending on the weather we might get a small 2nd cut of grass to wrap some haylage for horses later on.

Well I’ve run out of room, I could go on for ages but I’ll leave that for the next time .
If there are any questions that people want to ask then write to the link and I will try and answer if I can.

Meanwhile keep your eyes on the fields and see how they change in the next month.

Andy Fussell