Crop work delayed at Broynach due to the extreme weather

I shouldn’t complain too much though as this area has fared considerably better than that of further south.

Although excessive rainfall has made large delays to carrying out our land work, we are in the fortunate position of having a later lambing which doesn’t kick off until the end of April. This later date is of course no guarantee of sunshine, shorts and T-shirts but at least the rain will hopefully be a little warmer!

Drilling dates are four days later than last year and seven days later than the norm for John Anderson (Image: Web)

Most of the ploughing is usually carried out in March here which is a month that normally gives us relatively dry conditions to get on with the job. That is not how it went this year unfortunately with the ploughs being parked up for a week or even 10 days at a time. This led on to the last third of the ploughing being carried out in the first week of April.

Fortunately we are well over capacity in terms of ploughs with the two rigs managing to turn over 70 acres per day when the pressure was on.

Talking of pressure, we had the added problem of meeting our AECS obligations on the silage ground. The Wader Mown Grassland option forbids rolling or slurry application to take place after March 31. With sodden grassland unable to carry a tanker or a roller, the inability to carry out these tasks caused me a bit of concern.

However, luckily the last three days of March produced some great drying winds that allowed us to get on the ground and with our tractorman Craig putting in some long shifts alongside myself and Dad, 80% of the silage ground was rolled and some 3000gallons/acre of slurry applied. This is the first time we have almost been caught out like this since entering the scheme so we will need to think carefully before signing into future contracts that force us to farm by calendar dates.

With all the downtime from land work came the opportunity to catch up with livestock with sheep getting their Heptavac vaccine and cows receiving their Rotavec and BVD jabs. The poor weather also allowed us to concentrate on something we have not been doing enough of in recent years which is drainage. More than 2000m of drainage pipe has been laid over the winter – it certainly wasn’t a problem finding water!

As we dig through the fields and uncover the vast ancient network of stone built drains and clay tiles running through the farms, the scale of the work that was created with picks and spades all those years ago never fails to amaze me. Although on the whole the majority of these drains are perfectly functional, some of them are just a bit shallow to withstand the weight of modern machinery and it is just something we need to keep on top of more regularly.

Despite the ground being soft we have managed to get some variable rate lime application carried out although not as much as I had hoped. It was decided that running a tractor and spreader over soft ploughing in some places was going to do more harm than good. The majority of the barley fields are now spread to their target pH of 6.3 using a calcium-based lime to try to balance out the over use of magnesium-based lime that has been used in this area historically.

GPS soil mapping is a new concept for us and although we have expressed interest in it in the past, it is only recently that local contractors have invested in the technology to variably apply products. Also, with the ‘Preparing for Sustainable Farming’ grant covering the sampling cost there has never been a better time to do it. I find soil maps fascinating with the pH variation within a field being huge. With lime edging close to £50/tonne in this area, accurately applying the product has never been more important.

Now on to drilling and our variety choices for this year are Firefoxx and Sassy for malting barley and Merlin for milling oats. The seedbed fertiliser is a 13-13-21 + 6% sulphur and is being applied at 3cwt/acre through the seeder.

Drilling started on April 19 which is four days later than last year and seven days later than our average start date of the 12th. At the time of writing, April 22, we are well on with drilling malting barley and hopefully the weather will hold to get the oats almost finished inside the month although looking at the forecast this might be unachievable.

We don’t find later drilled spring crops incur the yield penalty some would proclaim provided it gets up and away like a rocket in May. Going by the weather pattern of late this unfortunately is by no means guaranteed.

Margaret and Anna are currently away on the Isle of Skye helping at the lambing on her family’s home farm. She is hoping that the madness of the spring drilling campaign will be over before she returns. I have a feeling she will be disappointed!