There are a few litter louts travelling the highways and byways of our beautiful country.

Like countless other places, the home farm has lots of road frontage and there’s often a trail of litter left scattered behind by these louts. We pick it up until we’re blue in the face and maybe this is simply a catalyst for these lowlifes to chuck more out.

But if you don’t keep on top of it, I think it encourages more littering. It’s a bit like if everybody else is nibbling at hedges before the open season, you might do a little as well.

It doesn’t make it legal but if others are at it, you’re less likely to be caught.

I wonder about the perpetrators of this littering – do they do the same around their own houses? Unfortunately we now live in an age where some people couldn’t care less about you or me or the environment.

After all, we now live in a country where the political tail is wagging the dog as we are in effect being governed by populist left-of-centre politicians who, against all common sense, have ruled out environmentally-responsible water charges.

Fly-tipping, whether it be throwing fast food boxes and plastic bottles out of the car window or dumping bags of refuse, is becoming a major national issue. Some country roads (there’s a boggy one near us) are being desecrated on a daily basis with rubbish. What some people clearly fail to understand is the permanence of littering.

Unless some responsible person chooses to pick up these foil wraps and plastics, they remain forever as a pollutant. It’s the same with loose plastic baler twines in stubble fields and silage wraps. Someone has to pick them up. They won’t disappear.

I would encourage you to clean up your patch of roadside, now that we’re heading towards summer. Yes, I know the county councils are well paid to do this but they need our help. We have to make littering as antisocial as a chain-smoking, flatulent minibus driver with BO.

That’s enough about the roadsides and we’ll jump across the hedge into the fields.

Many of the crops are now topped up with their final nitrogen, to their respective limits. Holy Thursday was a lovely calm day for spreading and I spread just over 45t of Sulphan on 370ac, singlehandedly, before darkness fell.

A friend once remarked that he’s more comfortable about spraying than spreading in breezy weather. I know about best practice and all that, but I agree with him.

I’m always uneasy about the effect of wind on the spread pattern at 24 metres. Besides, air-induction low drift sprayer jets are very effective in tricky conditions. We’re on our second Bogballe spreader – they’re super machines – and both have had on-board weighing, which means they are extremely accurate.

I used to take bulk fertiliser but now it’s always the 600kg bags, which are a treat.

Yes, there are lots of empty bags but €600 a year to FRS takes care of all our plastic waste and chemical containers. In the scheme of things, it’s fine.

Practically all our fertiliser needs were bought last autumn and taken into store, which you can’t really do with bulk. The cost saving over today’s prices is nice as well.

Finally a word of thanks to Andy Doyle for his excellent (as always) Crop Protection 2017 supplement. We need sound, science-based people like Andy directing policy in Brussels rather than some of the crew over there.