Recent good weather has enabled a transformation of the countryside. Planting has taken place at an unprecedented rate over the past week, which even saw spring wheat being planted because seed was on hand. And winter growers got the chance to catch up on essential growth regulation and fungicide.

The main activity has been spring barley planting, but with land drying out rapidly, planting of maize, potatoes and spring oilseed rape is also under way. And fodder beet will quickly follow.

However, the sight of a number of grass fields recently burned off will more likely to lead to reseeding than any increase in spring cereal planting this year.

Availability of certified seed is unlikely to be an issue this spring, compared with last year, but individual varieties have become unavailable in places in recent weeks.

It seems possible that overall area planted to spring crops may be somewhat reduced this year as a result of competition for land. An amount of land used for tillage in recent years has been taken for dairying this year.