Suddenly with a dry week forecast following the endless rain of last week, we have had to move quickly.

The two most urgent tasks are to get the slatted tanks empty ahead of the 1 October deadline for slurry spreading and to get the grass seed sown as soon as possible.

It’s later than ideal for the grass seed while soil temperatures are still good but in my view, it’s the shorter evenings that are the bigger handicap.

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One way or another, assuming we get reasonable establishment, it’s going to need tender management next spring and early summer.

A bigger question is why the old permanent pasture sward deteriorated so badly to the stage where it was a mass of dandelions, docks and weed grasses with very little ryegrass or clover.

Part of the reason may be a lower than ideal pH. We have concentrated on making sure the lime status on the tillage land is around seven. Some fields never need any with a stable pH of over seven but others need a constant topping up.

Some of the grassland is in this category and we have not tested those as regularly as we should have. The ground being reseeded has now had a preliminary application of two tonnes per acre and we will test it again next autumn.

We are now, as I write, finishing up the bean harvest. It is much later than seems to be the case in other parts of the country.

While the crop has yielded acceptably but not spectacularly, I should have the final weights in a few days. We now have to decide on the tillage rotation for next harvest.

The disappearance of the option to sow gluten-free oats has left a gap as regards what should follow the oilseed rape.

I am looking to see what added-value crops are available but despite all the urging to move away from commodity crops, there are not that many alternatives.

On a brighter note, the oilseed rape has made excellent progress with a good even cover across the two fields.

We are using the fine weather to do some ditch cleaning with my tracked digger. It is now showing its age so we had to decide whether it should be replaced at a cost or whether we should try and carry out a full service and replace worn out components.

We plumped for the servicing option.

A day spent cleaning ditches should show up if there is anything seriously wrong or whether we made the right decision in going for a full service from the specialist firm that we have used for a long time.

On the cattle side, we are now as fully stocked as we are going to be as we head into the winter.

We are getting through the good crops of after grass but how much weight gain is being achieved won’t be clear until we weigh them at housing.