March 2009

“And they are off” As the much loved horse racing commentator Peter O’Sullivan use to say. At the hint of spring, the drills, fertiliser spinners and sprayers are moving. Needless to say snow and ice will return as typical for the month of March. Crops remain backward but on the whole they have pulled through the winter reasonably well..

February 2009

Having avoided the worst of the snow has not really been a blessing! Fields of slug, rabbit damaged wheat, and pest ravaged rape is a sobering sight. The majority of my clients are in the largest new Nitrate Vulnerable Zone which has lead to a great deal of work as we start to prepare records to comply with the legislation.

November 2008

The Queen’s phrase “horrible year” comes to mind, as I am reliably informed that we are only the odd millimetre short of the wettest in twenty years. This is an excess of over 300 mm! Crops are growing painfully slow, with fortnightly visits not seeing any new leaves emerging but only an extra centimetre in leaf length!

October 2008

The local competition is to see who is the last to finish combining! As the final cereals and bean crops in water logged fields are gathered in. More favourable weather has at last seen drilling hit full speed as everyone makes the best of the autumn sunshine.

September 2008

Harvest is at long last coming to a close and like most farmers I will be glad to see the back of it! Time will no doubt provide some of the information on why yields of wheat were so surprisingly high when it appeared to be a wet and dull grain filling period.

June 2008

Having recently returned from judging the 2008 Arable Advisor of the year I can truly say that as an industry we have some outstanding individuals who support  UK arable production!  My congratulations go to all three worthy finalists.

May 2008

April disappeared with barely a spray day available and weather more akin to Norway rather than North Yorkshire! Needless to say it is now beautiful and I challenge anyone to find a better place to be than the UK in May.

April 2008

Having once again woken up to snow on the ground it appears that the month of March has been lost without trace! Everything has now had some fertiliser with the rape and barley complete. Despite the weather crops in general look well with good potential.

March 2008

In like a lion out like a lamb! Well the first part was certainly true but in farming terms there were plenty of opportunities to cultivate and drill. Spring drilling is now well advanced and conditions are in general pretty good.

February 2008

Spring IS in the air! Having suffered 125mm of rain in January February has provided us with the cold start we hoped to help further suppress the disease bank. Having convinced myself about the justification of a T0 spray doubts start to nag at me.