Talking Arable – Arable Farming

St Swithun certainly has lived up to his reputation and it never ceases to amaze just how many of these old sayings ring true.

As things stand, we have only the late sown spring barley and spring beans left to cut with the winter feed barley, winter milling wheats and early sown spring malting barley, all performing very pleasingly in terms of both yield and quality.

The increased hassle factor also included firing up the old diesel-powered drying system with all the extra cost and work that it entails. However, without it, some of the winter barley and milling specs could well have been lost entirely.

So as the dust settles, thinking turns to autumn planning in terms of finalising the cropping and cultivation plans for myself and my growers.

One of the benefits of the weather this summer is the higher temperatures/dry weather experienced during flowering and early seed formation, plus St Swithun’s six weeks of rain. We now have black-grass seed that has low dormancy with high fitness and an ideal moist environment for these highly viable seeds to get cracking and germinate. This is the complete opposite scenario to last season where the dreaded weed did not germinate at all until we had our winter barley and wheat sown into dryish seedbeds with no decent rains until the following spring.

So cultivations – don’t shoot the messenger here – but the other beneficial aspect of this weather is that the stubbles are also in perfect order for a properly setup plough, should the field be in need of a reset.

As this is being typed, my tin helmet is being firmly strapped on but, in all seriousness, where a field has not been ploughed for four-five years, it really is a perfect way to get a clean, fresh start.

Where the plough is not set up properly (20 inch furrows) or driven incorrectly (over 4.5mph) then you could end up in a worse place than when you started.

Organic manure/compost applications to improve soil fertility are also key for long-term soil health enhancement and our regular applications of paper crumble are improving our soils year on year.

Some of the new fields we have taken on to our tenancy this year are exactly the same soil type, but completely different beasts in terms of seedbed creation and up to 2.5 tonnes per hectare lower in yield with exactly the same agronomy.

Another old saying from a dearly loved and sadly now departed grower of mine was that you needed two backsides to farm. One on the tractor seat and the other for the night-soil (that’s the edited version) which is exactly correct.

The 365 days per year requirement of mixed farming doesn’t fit with many arable growers’ lifestyles, but no amount of cover cropping or direct drilling will replace the lost humus in these soils which have been consistently depleting since the 1970s.

Flak jacket now on and zipped up. At Hill Farm we are a Regional Technology Centre for Hutchinsons and one of our system fungicide trials really stood out from the combine.

The entire trials square was a black colour compared to the field with the only difference being the Solatenol used at earwash, compared to a standard earwash used within the trials. This year with the wet, late growing season the earwash stage disease pressure was acute, so we probably got lucky with that one again.

What does induce a BBC Radio 4 type reaction in me (i.e. angry shouting at the radio while alone) is how some of the media phrase the application of crop medicines to control diseases as ‘plastering with fungicides’.

These products actually consistently enhance yield and quality in crops of decent potential with a significant return on money spent, so why minimise and reduce their use?

We have the technology so let’s embrace it. Second tin helmet currently being strapped on.