This time last year we were giving up on our efforts to get winter crops sown. We were leaving messy headlands, damp compacted patches, areas left unsown and no oats sown at all.

This autumn has been totally different. As I write, we are sowing the last of the autumn crops – gluten-free oats with a one-pass into ploughed ground that is giving us almost perfect conditions.

All the winter barley is up with tramlines visible and the winter wheat is just peeping above ground. We have put in, at our customer’s request, a variety of winter barley that is not resistant to barley yellow dwarf virus, so I am resigned to applying an aphicide, though it would be helpful if we had some indication of the infectivity of the aphid population in the area.

This technology was being developed though I have heard very little of it in recent years.

While this autumn has been a huge improvement in being able to get crops established, it has been an expensive summer.

While the dry weather allowed us to do a lot of subsoiling and stubble cultivation as well as draining areas that had suddenly been seen as vulnerable to continuous winter rain, it all cost money.

Grain prices have not recovered as milk prices have and inputs, especially fertilisers, have stayed far above levels before the invasion of Ukraine.

While I was pleased to see the first tranche of the BISS payment arrive, it was reduced by almost exactly 30% from its 2020 level.

Though of course we still have the eco element as well as the straw incorporation and protein payments to come.

Last week, I mentioned that we had spread some lime on some of the grassland that had a lower than ideal pH.

I had safely kept the letter from the Department saying that my application for the €16/t subsidy had been received and my eligibility for the scheme accepted, though pointing out that because of the number of applications, the tonnage eligible for payment would be scaled back.

However, when we went to submit our claim for payment during the week, we were told that the scheme had closed. I went through the correspondence to find that the scheme had in fact closed at the end of October 2023, not as I had assumed October 2024. My mistake and a stupid one!