I was lying under the drill unblocking a fertiliser coulter. It had the blockage sensors buzzing, which was driving me mad. I would prefer to suffer the shame of an odd blocked coulter, rather than have these wretched sensors doing my head in. Maybe not…

As I’ve said before, I like the work that the Horsch Sprinter drill does but I don’t enjoy working it. Too many fiddly electronics in a corrosive environment. And the fertiliser eats the metal casting on the end of the seed roller motors quicker than I can eat half a bag of Haribo Starmix sweets.

If you don’t already have a combine drill (seed and fertiliser), don’t buy one. They’re not a good idea. Fertiliser should be confined to the fertiliser spreader.

I was drilling the beans. It was past teatime and I was dying for something to eat. I can’t work if I’m hungry and I get hangry. Suddenly Max pulled into the field, fresh from Athy, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. It was Friday evening.

“Well what’s the craic down in the Promised Land?” I asked, but before he could answer I carried on, “anything to eat in that jeep?”

There was no fatherly greeting or anything like that – even though I hadn’t seen him for a week. We’re not like that in our family. We gave up hugging and shaking hands long before the coronavirus appeared.

“I have some Haribo Starmix,” answered Max. Well, I nearly had a trouser accident, I was that excited. If he had asked a tenner for the bag, I’d have given it to him.

Max tossed the bag in to me under the drill and five Haribos later, my world was a whole lot brighter. Yes, the soil was lovely and dry –even dusty. Of course it is a great idea to drill some fertiliser with the bean seed. The coulter was quickly unblocked and drilling resumed.

Sowing weather

And what perfect weather for field work. With bright sunshine and superb drying winds, the land became workable much more quickly than expected. But there are still wet holes.

Spring tillage work is an art in itself. A few days too early, before the soil is dry enough, and yield will be compromised. I’d rather be a week later than a week too early.

But the seedbed was ideal for beans, one of the best ever for them. We always plough for beans as they like a looser seedbed.

Roundup on wheat

It’s on to the oats and barley now. Most of the barley is under a malting contract and will be sown into min-tilled seedbeds, some freshly cultivated, others cultivated last autumn.

One field has been ploughed, as it has drainage issues. But it takes a lot of time and diesel to create a good seedbed in our ploughed land. By the time it’s ploughed and one or two passes with the Unipress and drilled, it’s quite a palaver towards straight in with the drill on the min-till.

Work on the winter crops is up to date but, in the main, they are not pretty. Some of the wheat is very patchy and I impetuously decided to spray off 40ac with Roundup. It would kill me to look at this patchy crop all year and I’d prefer even a middling crop of spring barley. Nor will we plough for it – one run of the Horsch Joker will be fine.

The actual wheat crop loss is, financially, not that great, but the potential loss is more serious. About 40ac of last September’s potential 4.5t first wheat crop is gone, to be replaced by a 2.5t crop of spring barley. It’ll take more than bag of Haribos to sweeten this.

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