The relatively dry weather has come as a godsend but we need a few more days of it to be fully prepared on the crop side. The oaten straw has caused endless headaches as I mentioned a fortnight ago. We chopped some of it with an old precision-chop forage harvester but the volume and wetness of the material meant that one of the driving belts burned out and in some of the field, we are back to square one.

At the same time, we have huge amounts of volunteer oats plants to which we have applied Roundup. The intention is then to spread out the remaining straw with a hay bob and then disc the whole field as uniformly as possible to plough. The volume of volunteers after oats is on a totally different level to the almost spotless stubble after winter wheat. As I am only feeling my way in growing oats, it is clear that straw disposal and stubble cultivation will have to move further up my priority list.

We have now bought as many bull weanlings as we can comfortably handle. There is little doubt that bought-in 18-month to two-year-old bullocks will happily stay out foraging until Christmas at least as long as there is shelter and enough grass and they will deliver compensatory growth when they go out on good grass in the spring. Weanling bulls of seven to eight months of age are a different proposition and have to be treated very gently to get over the shock of weaning, being transported for the first time in their lives and adjusting to strange surroundings.