The ploughed reseed is coming up on four weeks sowed and is doing extremely well.

For the past two and a half weeks, things have been warm and dry, with a little sprinkling of rain - perfect conditions for germination and growth.

I’ve been walking the field every two to three days for the past couple of weeks, keeping an eye out for weeds.

Very early on, it’s nearly impossible to tell the difference between weeds and the clover - all you can see is a small plant with two round leaves.

What looks like a clover today, might look like a dock tomorrow. So, it is important to keep checking fairly regularly in order to make a decision as to whether a post-emergence spray is needed.

The biggest majority of offending weeds in a newly reseeded field tend to be annual weeks and will die off after one year.

So, as long as they are not so dense as to smother the grass, they are not that huge of a problem.

Thistles can also be a problem, but, again, probably not the worst weed to try to get rid of. But the dock, now it is in a league of its own.

Docks

When it gets established and gets plenty of reserves stored up in that huge tap root, as my mother would say, “the divil in Hell wouldn’t kill it”.

So, it’s important, if at all possible, to try to eradicate it when it’s in the seedling form.

As I have clover in this mix, if I do end up applying a post-emergence spray, it will need to be a clover-safe spray, which means timing is of even greater importance.

A good rule of thumb is, if the leaves on the weed you are trying to get rid of are bigger that the size of a two-euro coin, then you are possibly too late to use a clover-safe spray.

Clover-safe sprays are generally weaker in nature so as not to damage the clover - they do an excellent job on seedling weeds, but not so good on established weeds.

Anyway, up until Monday, I was more than delighted as to how clean the field appeared to be shaping up.

Apart from the odd bit of redshank, there appeared to be almost no weeds at all. But when I walked into the field for the first few steps, things seem to have to changed drastically.

To my disappointment, there appeared to be quite a lot of docks coming through. Thankfully, when I walked further into the field it became clear that for some reason it was only around the gateway - the rest of the field remained more or less weed-free.

I’ll need to make up my mind as to what I’m going to do soon, as the field will soon be ready for grazing and spraying will delay grazing by at least a week.