At the risk of becoming like a dairy farmer, I’m looking for rain. Yes, I know, I’m uncomfortable about this, as it may well be the start of a long, unsettled spell, but the oilseed rape was sown into the dustiest seedbeds I’ve ever seen.

The seed drill was hardly visible behind the Fendt 724 and clouds of dust billowed across the fields. The roller became absolutely essential to quickly press the tiny seeds into what moisture there was.

Even in a more normal year, as soon as the oilseed rape is sown it enters into a period of intensive care. It’s difficult to establish successfully at the best of times, between slugs, flea beetle and cereal volunteers, so very dry seedbeds are an added burden.

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But this change in the weather will help to get it away, because frankly it’s the only crop that’s worth growing presently with cereals so depressed. Beans are also worthwhile. Speaking of which, I was overly optimistic about an August harvest for the beans. Stalks remain luminous green, with green pods at the top of the plant. They’ll be a while, as ever.

Anniversary

We didn’t have beans in 1985, but we had combining peas. The infamous harvest of 1985 was the worst one in my lifetime and as it’s 40 years ago this year, I’d like you to relive the experience with me, especially as this past harvest was a doddle and the complete opposite.

The summer of 1985 had been beastly since the June bank holiday and by harvest time the soil was saturated. We had just bought the farm on which I live and this brought us to a total of 462ac to harvest with a 10ft combine, which wasn’t going to happen. So, combine-wise we weren’t in a good place and had to rely on a busy contractor. The national combine fleet was very inadequate then.

But, machinery-wise, we had bought a new Rauch Aero pneumatic spreader and Fendt 611 LSA. This beauty cost £25,000 and I was blown away with it. Our first Fendt. Then I headed down to Castledermot and bought a big pig of an ex artic grain trailer for it to haul.

The winter barley harvest began in mid-August and we saved the flat 80ac over the following 10 days. We had a Colman batch grain dryer, which was an awful machine, and grain over 24% moisture would bridge in it.

Next crop to harvest (for harvest read bulldoze) were the flat peas which were cut at 35% and yielded a hard-won 0.5t/ac.

We poked at lodged wheat and spring barley for the next month in horrendous conditions, until we eventually got a breakthrough at the end of September and actually cut some wheat at 17.5 %.

By mid-October the harvest was effectively over with the last of the wheat at 38% moisture and 25ac of oats remained uncut as it was totally steamrolled. With tragic irony, it eventually dried out and I matched it later and blackened the field.

But I was young and in love and resiliently bounced back. By the end of a better October, we had 200ac sown again which was a good turnaround and we stroked away into mid-November. So, a hugely better end to the year.

And it also marks 40 years of Fendt ownership with just two outliers in between, a new Case MX 150 in 1999 (an animal to pull and bucking bronco to drive) and the recent Massey Ferguson arrival which I greatly dislike. I think it’s time to celebrate by replacing it with a proper tractor.

Trouble is grain is almost back to 1985 prices of £132 (€167)/t. But hey, I’m alive (and still in love).