Farming has been back on at Meads farm this month. Fertiliser has been going on and crops have been growing. Despite all the weather, the crops planted in autumn on the farm look great (at the moment), and bar a few wet/flooded spots, have done well. Phew.
The soil even dried up enough to plant the spring crops. The sugarbeet is all planted so your sweet tooth is safe! And the spring barley is in, so the beer will be made! All this happened on the easter weekend, so that was a busy one for Tom and Peter, but such is the life of a farmer. The windows of opportunity to get on the land with tractors to cultivate, plant, spray and fertilise are getting ever shorter with this extreme weather we are having. For example, it needs to be not raining while you are doing anything (if you are applying fertilizer or pesticide, if it is raining it will wash away). It needs to not be too windy (again if you are applying anything, you want it going exactly where you’re putting it and not blowing anywhere). The land needs to be dry enough to travel with a tractor (you don’t want to compact the soil, or worse, get stuck). It needs to not be too dry (stuff doesn’t grow when too dry and products don’t work). In “normal” years these parameters leave plenty of days to do the work. But we haven’t had a normal year for a while, so in our case this spring has left just enough days to do the work, with no spare. This can be a bit stressful as you have to constantly be ready to go, whenever conditions allow (easter egg hunt or not). But we are very pleased it is all in and well done to Tom and Peter!
It is quite a different picture elsewhere, however. The parameters are the same, but in Leicestershire where I work, we have more rain, wetter soil and cooler temperatures which means we have not had enough days to do the work. And now it is too late. If we plant the crops now, they won’t have enough time to grow before harvest and that will either mean low yields and/or late harvests and it is no longer economical to crop. So we will plant a summer cover crop instead. This will hopefully improve the soil and reduce the weed burden to leave the land better for next year. It will not however, produce any harvestable crop. The economic consequences of this for us and many others are significant.
Hurray for spring coming. Not to be too specific but Tom said he would like a week of dry, followed by a week of showers alternately for the next couple of months.