My mental target date for having the winter cereal fields cleared used to be 5 September. This year we have more than met our target.

By the last weekend in August, we had all the straw baled into 8x4x4s and stacked beside a laneway where they can be easily loaded and delivered for the mushroom trade.

We have also, by our end of August deadline, got the oilseed rape sown, rolled and slug pellets applied. This year we have again direct drilled the crop after a good stubble cultivation.

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We have sown a high yielding hybrid in place of our normal herbicide-tolerant Clearfield. The hope is that the early sowing will smother out any charlock that emerges, but we won’t know for some time yet how successful the strategy is.

The next major job is to get the slatted tanks emptied as quickly as possible and the slurry ploughed in so that we can get the winter barley and winter wheat sown.

I had earmarked the gluten free oats for the oilseed rape stubble, but I am still not quite sure what to plant in the place of oats with that contract no longer available.

After this year’s experience with some growers in the area I would not be willing to put in a crop of commodity oats without a contract.

With that said, it is noteworthy how well the co-op and merchant trade dealt with a large volume of grain in a concentrated period of time.

We still of course have the beans to harvest.

Despite the sunny weather over the August period, I am surprised at how green the stems are even though the pods seem ripe. My hopes for a bumper yield are evaporating, but we will see in what I reckon will be a fortnight’s time. The ideal would be a spray such as diquat but that for some reason is not allowed.

Cattle

On the cattle side, we continue to sell cattle as they become fit and are tentatively replacing. We have no option but to bring the cattle in for finishing as they approach 500kg.

We are using some silage and supplementing it with grazing by day and rolled barley and so on with the evening feed. I have always found it difficult to feed cattle concentrates at grass.

From a safety point of view, the operation can really only be done by driving the tractor and feeder out into the field and mechanically emptying the mix onto the grass.

This is no longer allowed under the bovine TB rules that apply to finishing units. While I can understand the logic behind the rule, it means that some kind of structure to control the stock is essential.

They take very little training to learn to come in to the houses for their feed at evening time but it adds to the workload. Meanwhile, with the continuing drop in calf registrations, I wonder will there be any call for a return of the rule that banned the export of cattle under 400kg?