It’s not just grass that is growing during this extraordinary autumn. This week, we took the decision to graze a few paddocks of new ley that I thought we wouldn’t have cattle on until next spring, but with high covers and excellent ground conditions, it didn’t seem to make sense to ignore a build-up of highly digestible grass. Will we pay for it next spring? Perhaps, but the intention will be to go out with slurry as soon as conditions and regulations allow in the January/February period.

The grass is already too far advanced for slurry to be applied, so by next spring, we would have had to take a grazing in advance of slurry going out in any event. The only cattle that are in the shed at this stage are those that we intend to finish indoors.

It’s not only on the grass side that growth and ground conditions are unusual. Last week, we had a full inspection of the crops.

All are well established, with the winter barley and the oilseed rape growing vigorously - we wondered if the oilseed rape was a little too vigorous. Certainly, I would be very surprised if there is any pigeon damage to the oilseed rape this year as there is very little landing space. The only crop that we decided needed treatment with a precautionary fungicide that also has some growth regulation effect was the oilseed rape.

There was no great evidence of aphids leading to potential Barley Yellow Dwarf Virus (BYDV) damage on the wheat. We had already treated the early-sown winter barley. Nor was there any sign of slug damage even after the oilseed rape, which is where you would expect it.

For the last few years, the oilseed rape has been followed by oats. There seems to be a growing view that oats seem to have some kind of toxin-producing capacity that suppresses both slugs and many weeds in a well-established crop.

Certainly, with any experience I have had of wheat after oilseed rape, slugs have always been a real problem.