The spell of dry weather last week let us finish the long-delayed autumn herbicide control on both the oilseed rape and the winter barley. After the wet October, we did leave a few deep ruts in a few tramlines where drainage was unexpectedly weak.

For safety’s sake, we added an aphicide to the tank mix, though with the cold weather forecast it may have been unnecessary.

While we still have most of the wheat to treat, we are happy enough that we have the most urgent problems under control.

We have also taken a note of the most vulnerable parts of the affected fields so that we can put in some new drains immediately after the next harvest - which at this stage seems a long way away.

Though I must admit I am looking with trepidation at the continuous fall in the futures price of both wheat and oilseed rape, while there seems to be little downward movement in the price of fertiliser.

Lush crop

The mild October and most of November has meant a really lush crop of oilseed rape. The charlock in the main oilseed rape field which we sprayed a few weeks ago is slowly going a pale yellow when compared with the vivid green of the oilseed rape plants, so the treatment is working.

Meanwhile, with the cattle safely inside, we have separated them into pens that are for finishing over the next six weeks or so, others that will be finished out of the shed and finally those that will go out onto grass.

All are on different diets but, costing in our own barley at what I would have got for it immediately after the harvest as well as our own silage, reflecting the peak fertiliser prices of last summer, we are feeding an expensive ration that will need a high price to make any kind of profit on our winter finishing.

We have more good hay and straw than usual, so we will feed the stores as much as possible on those and supplement them with spent wet grains from one of the new distilleries that is an easy drive away.

While these products are easily incorporated into the diet feeder which has served us well, I find the hay inclined to wrap itself around the central augur.

We will fit a new set of heavy duty knives and hopefully will reduce the consumption of diesel spent in chopping fibre.

As usual, the weakness in some of the old slats only becomes apparent when the cattle go in. We have had an occasional breakage.

I was not that surprised when I was told that the old 10ft slats are no longer available except by special arrangement which would take a while, so we settled for a number of the gang slats with 4 slats per gang.