The pressure to maximise output and minimise costs is intense at times like this. For the last few years, we have been reseeding some land every year and the increased output has meant that we either need more cattle to eat it or else we conserve more for winter feed.

As it is, I am slightly short of shed space so having more cattle is not an option unless it is just for summer grazing, which has normally not been a profitable system. For the last several years, maize has been an integral part of both the tillage rotation and the cattle diet. This year, it is with some reluctance that I am dropping it and depending more on grass as the roughage base of the winter feed. The rotational needs are being taken care of with beans, oilseed rape and my new gluten-free oats, but the dropping of the maize means extra pressure in getting slurry out after first-cut silage and after the harvest. But, unless I build more cattle housing, it seems the best decision to make though the maize ground absorbed a lot of slurry in the early to mid-April period, which was ideal.

Meanwhile, during the week of dry, cool weather, we got fully up to date with our fertiliser spreading and spraying and continued to spread slurry on each paddock after grazing the bulls. The beans are now safely grown out of the way of crow damage, but the number of holes where the bean seed has been burrowed down to and destroyed irritates me. The overall final effect should be very small, however.

Grass growth has been so slow – with an unhealthy blueish tinge – that we have decided to zero graze a portion of ground that we have not grazed and had intended for first-cut silage. This should even up the sward and delay heading until well past 1 June and let a high-quality crop be taken. On the rest of the silage ground, we have grazed, slurried and are now putting on the nitrogen.