Spring appears to have arrived with some excellent growing condition for the crops.

We have applied fertiliser to all the crops now and they have noticeably responded. Unfortunately, despite getting very close to spring drilling in early February, it is still too wet. We had more rain last night again. However, the forecast looks good from now on, I will be happy as long as we get drilled up in March. With 1500 acres of spring crops to get in the ground it can be a frustrating experience.

The winter has been busy with ditching and drainage work taking place on some of the farms we manage. Because we use no cultivation on the farm, such as ploughing, it is even more vitally important that our drainage is in excellent working order. No till drilling simply does not work if the drainage is not working properly on our heavy clay soil. The 2nd picture shows a ditch where we uncovered 21 drains which once cleaned all began to run again.

We are in some volatile times in farming. Inflation is running fairly rampant, for example fertiliser and field have increased in price by 200-300%. Whilst this is pretty shocking at first glance, in the long run I think farmers will be benefit. It will push farmers to have to innovate and work out how to use these inputs more efficiently. There is a lot of work going on under the radar about fertiliser use efficiency that we have been following for some time, lessons learned are being applied, but a huge price rise is certainly a kick up the backside to get out of our comfort zone.

Here's to a good spring.

Adam