Wet weather has been the order of the day for the last few weeks, it seems the gods finally

decided to bless us with some rain. We certainly need it over the winter as the deficit of

annual rainfall was massive coming into October. Like Jo wrote a few weeks ago we have

been busy ditching and clearing drains to ensure the excess water moves away from the

fields quick enough. This is a very satisfying job especially where farms are new to us and

this work hasn’t been carried out for a while. Attached is a picture of drain that was blocked

underneath a tree.

Crops look good so far, we ended up planting more winter wheat and oats than originally

planned because of the nice autumn. The wheat replaced what was supposed to spring

barley. The rationale behind this was that a late drilled wheat is still good for blackgrass

control, and overall wheat is a far more consistent crop than spring barley – which can often

be a bit of a boom or bust venture. Growing spring barley when the season is with you and

things go well is an absolute doddle, with dry springs and wet winters it can be a pretty

depressing experience.

Electrum winter barley is romping away, a very easy crop to grow, all for malting. Wheat

again is good, some grassweed pressure but nothing too drastic that our inter row hoe wont

remove. Beans are looking too good nearly so need some colder weather to slow them

down. Winter oats, a new crop to us as we usually grow spring oats are growing quickly and

should provide a high quality crop that will hopefully end up in Navara, which is very

exciting.

Grain prices have been dropping recently, we are all wondering now where the new floor in

the market is. Perhaps levels will rise again after Christmas when demand grows again.

Inputs such as fertiliser are slowly coming down, but who knows what will happen with gas

so everything is still very up in the air. It continues to focus our minds in a business sense in

terms of BPS going and the volatility in inputs. Our labour and machinery costs are low

enough to take some of the brunt without risking output. Cutting too fine however causes

issues. Saving pennies to lose a pound is nonsensical, but also spending a pound to make a

penny is equally difficult to justify in such volatility.

We are all in this together, as a farmer Camgrain is an extension of our business. The

relationship between the two is a symbiant circle so I thankyou all for the work put in.

Until next time, have a great weekend and run up to Christmas.

Adam