We finally made a start at sowing the winter barley over the weekend. Conditions were just about acceptable and while we made good progress, we have less than one quarter of our planned acreage sown.

Will we get it all in? Opinions seem to vary on how late it is sensible to continue to aim for winter barley, before recognising the risks, closing the gate and waiting for the spring equivalent.

The only spring barley I have ever sown was for whole crop silage, which was fine in so far as it went, but I hate depending on an early dry spring on our land, so I will certainly give it another week.

Single-pass sower

Up to now, we have been ploughing about two days ahead of the single pass sower but, for the wheat, we will keep directly ahead of it.

I have always regarded wheat as the more resilient of the cereals to less than ideal sowing conditions, but clearly there is a limit on how sticky a soil you are prepared to plant in.

I have taken delivery of the seed wheat to go in after beans and these fields seem to be firmer and less affected by the incessant rain. Unless there are extraordinary difficulties, I assume these will get planted.

Harvested cereals sold

With the change in my cattle system and moving from bulls to steers, I have sold all my harvested cereals and will buy in what I expect will be the much lower quantities needed to finish mature steers.

The new system will have a much lower output of beef per acre and will inevitably have a much higher proportion of dairy genetics than my suckler-sourced bull weanlings.

We will be forced to house everything earlier than I ever remember

Any profits that are made will be hugely influenced by having no depreciation on the buildings - they are well written off at this stage. No land rental charge goes in for the land and, of course we still have a basic farm payment, though it is decreasing each year.

These three factors may give the system some resilience but they also allow us to exist in what many would term a fool’s paradise.

This week, we are finally replacing two pens of old slats, but with ground conditions now so bad, we will be forced to house everything earlier than I ever remember, unless there is a major weather change.

Read more

Home Farm: enforced idleness

From the Tramlines: the weather waiting game continues