With the dry weather over the weekend and a good forecast for a few days, suddenly everything needs attention.

The first priority was to get the Roundup on the beans ground – it badly needs cleaning up before sowing. The aim is to get them sown sometime between St Patrick’s Day and 1 April.

Last year, it dragged on until the very end of April. We paid a penalty in terms of yield and a later than ideal harvest. Only that the autumn was so favourable, we would have missed the chance of getting the winter wheat sown.

At this stage, we have most of the year’s fertiliser in 500kg bags delivered and in the yard.

We would have saved the cost of the big bags if we had been able to get the fertiliser delivered in bulk but we simply don’t have enough covered shed space to store the different fertilisers until they are needed, as well as having the bulk soya and barley available for the cattle.

The 500kg bags store well outside and are reasonably easy to lift and empty into the fertiliser spreader with the front end loader.

Our relatively new fertiliser spreader is fitted with a full GPS which was one of the conditions in qualifying for the TAMS grant. The other condition was that we do a farm safety course.

The first crop for fertiliser is the oilseed rape. The ammonium sulphate will supply enough of the needed sulphur and we then move on to the winter barley with an N-P-K compound.

The spring has given us a chance to assess how last summer’s drainage of some really difficult areas has worked

The winter oats and wheat we will leave for a week or so. Both are reasonably weed-free but it’s noticeable that in the winter wheat following last year’s spring oats, there is a much heavier infestation of volunteer oats than was ever the case when the wheat followed the normal winter oats. A selective herbicide is going to be needed.

The spring has given us a chance to assess how last summer’s drainage of some really difficult areas has worked. We put in a conventional system in two areas and they have both worked well with the ground fully trafficable.

Does there come a point when we should say ‘let’s put the money for the beef in the bank and not buy expensive stores’?

At this stage we can say that the expense has been worth it. Elsewhere, we cleaned out a blocked watercourse and ran a series of parallel gravel-filled mole drains. Again, the area of the field has been transformed. Granted, it has been a comparatively dry winter and spring but even after some of the heavy rain, there has been no lying water in the treated areas.

On the cattle side, the question has to be how much more is left in the beef price surge? With each load that goes out, we are replacing, but does there come a point when we should say ‘let’s put the money for the beef in the bank and not buy expensive stores’? So far we have resisted the temptation and while we could opt out, it would go against the grain.