Winter Wonders

It is not often I say what an easy season we have had but this autumn has been text book. After the last few years of bad autumns, lots of people around here (Buckinghamshire/Oxfordshire border) were throwing wheat into the ground in September. Our seedbeds certainly would not allow for this being a heavy clay. After an initial cultivation with a Sumo Trio and Simba Cultipress to conserve moisture they were put to bed. Mid September saw another pass of the Cultipress after some significant rain had penetrated the lumps. This did a good job but seedbeds were grotty. Patience has taught me it can be a double edged sword but this time it paid to wait. Early October rain again loosened lumps. Pre drilling with Glyphosate and the second week of October saw all wheat drilled with a Vaderstad Rapid. This did a superb job of cutting and loosening any lumps that remained. Rolling with avadex being broadcast off the back of the rolls and then a pre emergence spray after this saw the seed beds put to bed. The following week the rain came in and hasn’t really let up. I am pleased we got on when we did as now it would be tricky and fiddly putting wheat into some wet conditions. The mix of mild and wet weather has certainly helped the crops. The wheat is emerging well with no signs of blackgrass at present.

My previous gamble of planting Oilseed Rape has paid off and I have never seen such a good thick crop. Even so we have a few flocks of pigeons starting to look puckish though. We have even managed to get all the hedge cutting done before it came in too wet. A text book autumn in my eyes. However this is all super news but when we turn to commodity prices we are at least £20 a tonne under the cost of production. We have mills filled up until the spring. With our 2 bulk tipper lorries we are seeing foreign wheat flooding into the country with little or no sanctions on it. This is an area that needs hitting hard. Lobbying red tractor and the AIC is a must along with this government. Why are we bringing the imports in when we have so much produce here. I would disagree its quality as we have milling wheat sat here that merchants do not seem interested in. Please do get in contact if you have any strong opinions on this, and how we could get AIC, Red Tractor and the merchants to listen?

On a final note I was at Liverpool during the Labour conference. We had a coffin displayed by the conference entrance with banners of comments from the Trailer of Truth campaign. I question how government will ever engage with farmers.... They would not talk to us on a one to one basis when I asked them what they had for breakfast that morning. Yes we need to lobby government, but now is the time to unite and stand up to the government and fight for what we believe in.

Winter Wonders

Written by Derek Pearce

Published by FTA.