Persevering with from my final report, February noticed us crack on with spring oat drilling, however rain sadly stopped play with simply three days to go. It’s not stopped raining since.
I suppose rain was on the playing cards after such an extremely dry and sunny February.
Concerning the writer
John Pawsey
Arable Farmer Focus author
John Pawsey is an natural farmer at Shimpling Park in Suffolk. He began changing the 650ha of arable cropping in 1999, and in addition contract farms a further 915ha organically, rising wheat, barley, oats, beans and spelt.
To say that I’m feeling happy that we obtained a lot drilled after we had the possibility is flawed. Unbearable smugness is far nearer to the reality.
Within the meantime, our spring barley is placing on a beautiful present with its vibrant inexperienced rows and the primary sown oats are actually rising.
Simply earlier than the deluge, we managed to get a particularly weedy early drilled crop of winter wheat inter-row hoed with our System Cameleon, which I believe was a primary on our chalky boulder clay within the shortest month of the 12 months.
Once we do handle to get again on the land the workload can be big.
The entire farm needs to be hoed, wild chook mixtures should be reduce, cultivated then re-sown and the final cereal crop within the rotation needs to be undersown with subsequent 12 months’s fertility leys.
On the drizzly days I’ve been attending quite a few on-line conferences, primarily beginning with the prefix “understanding.”
These embrace: “Understanding biodiversity internet acquire”, “Understanding how you can change your Primary Fee” and “Understanding the brand new Environmental Land Administration scheme.”
The final is my favorite as “we don’t truly perceive it ourselves.” It’s prime of my record.
Despite the fact that making future monetary plans round a scheme that hasn’t been absolutely developed is difficult, current will increase in choices look promising.
It seems ultimately we’re going to be rewarded for what farming organically has delivered at Shimpling Park Farm over the previous 25 years when it comes to elevated biodiversity and more healthy soils. We have now surveys to show it.
