Suddenly after the weekend rain, the new grass reseed changed from a dull looking brown with struggling young grass seedlings to a green healthy carpet of young grass.

We had Roundup-ed the old sward, which had badly deteriorated, and reseeded with a clover-rich grass mix.

This will mainly be used for grazing rather than cutting, but the dry September let us get through a lot of work.

For the first time in many years, we took a third cut of silage from some of the land reseeded over the last few years.

On the crop side, the dry weather has let us sow the bulk of the winter barley in excellent conditions

We got a good wilt, so we didn’t use an additive – whether this will turn out to have been the right decision to not use it, we will see when we open that section of the pit and have the material tested.

On the crop side, the dry weather has let us sow the bulk of the winter barley in excellent conditions, though I am resigned, given how early it is in the ground, that aphids and the associated yield-sapping barley yellow dwarf virus is a real possibility, so vigilance is going to be needed. The whole harvest itself has been among the easiest I ever remember, with reasonable yields of each crop but no spectacular outcomes.

We did bale up some of the oilseed rape straw, which is theoretically sold

In the main, the crops were weed free and standing, which made for easy combining and meant the wheaten straw was easily saved. This is all stacked, ready to go to the mushroom industry while I fulfilled my obligation to chop the oaten straw, though given the year, we could probably have saved it.

We did bale up some of the oilseed rape straw, which is theoretically sold, though no price has been agreed yet, but the balance of the rape straw has been chopped and incorporated under the Department scheme. Next year’s oilseed rape is already well up, with tramlines fully visible and slug pellets applied. The cycle really is non-stop.