Next season

Sometimes nothing happens then sometimes everything happens.  It’s the nature of farming and I remember my late Grandfather (repeating his grandfather) saying “a good farmer can do 6 days work in 3 and 3 days work in 6”, meaning that you flex your effort and energy based on what needs doing not an arbitrary 8 hours…  The advantage of arable farming of course is that you do – occasionally – get the breaks.

Anyway, it’s harvest time so that means while thinking of the next few weeks of activity we also need to plan what will be sown when.  We need to organise not only the combine but also the primary cultivation and sowing and for oilseed rape this all needs to happen before the middle of August.

That means I have next year’s cropping plan.  It’s quite heavily influenced by the performance of last year’s crops, the market predictions, the needs of the soil and this year the impact of the housing development.

The yellow areas will be Oilseed rape, harvested in the next week or so and, some digestate applied (known to farmers as rocket fuel as it’s that good nutritionally) then primary cultivation and sowing.

The cropping map is once again available on the front page if you want to refer to it.

So the team will be busy, if you see them working give them a wave and a smile.  Even better take pics and share them.  It’s an exciting and rewarding time of year for us (even though we’re tired) so we appreciate a wave.