So here we are at the end of the first week of April and it is still freezing cold, the ground is drying out incredibly quickly with the biting easterly winds and everyone is asking when will spring arrive!
Winter wheat crops generally look hammered, thin and blue in colour at this time, with most fields having bare patches in them. What has been so encouraging from my point of view has been the fact that most of my autumn drilled cereals are still in the field, they haven't succumbed to the unrelenting rain and now cold. I say most, but not all. One variety in particular has faired poorly in two different areas, one near Lands End, the other near Holsworthy. One was drilled early, the other later, but not stupidly late given where it is. Both on lighter ground. Both drilled with tine type drills, one a min till type, the other a direct type. It looks like the soils at drilling time weren't dusty dry and as a result the tines have smeared a groove through the soil, which has not allowed any real root development to take place and in the direct drilling case, the whole lot succumbed to the elements. What is interesting is that other varieties drilled in the same manner have survived, whilst those drilled with a combination drill have flourished and generally look very good.
Istabraq and its offspring Avatar both look good, both varieties that like the late drilling slot, have high specific weights and very good fusarium scores. Claire too looks very good and there are many a grower down here who are growing it and thanking their lucky stars that they have probably the easiest and most farmer friendly variety out there on farm, as that which didn't get drilled last Autumn has been going in right up till mid March without any problems.
Slugs have been the bane of most farmers this year, Oilseed rape has been hammered, some has been redrilled late in the autumn to winter oats, only for that too to have been grazed right out too. The early sown stuff put down with a subsoiler leg has been good, simple method and the seed wasn't put too deep, the ridges created mini microclimates and enabled the seedlings to get established. The stuff planted in to a sumo'd field conventionally got nailed, my feeling is the disc type drill put the seed too deep initially and the slugs had a field day. Wheat too has been grazed to nothing despite repeated slug pelleting, the very wet and mild conditions up to January providing ideal conditions for them.
Paradoxically, we find ourselves now in a mini drought situation, grass is being scorched to nothing in the cold biting artic conditions that have prevailed for the last 6 weeks nearly, the last 3 weeks have seen cold frosty conditions daily with soil temperatures hovering around 2C, far from ideal to generate any growth. Late drilled wheat (Mid to Late February) is only now just emerging 5 weeks post planting.
The are a large number of farmers who are fast running out of forage of any kind, most first cut silage a have been used, second cuts are generally very dry and poor quality due to their cutting being delayed by last summers rains, third cut generally is wet, acidic and not very good either. Add to this a generally very poor quality whole crop cereals, maize yields averaging about 6-8 tons/ac, less than half what you would normally expect, low quality, stunted grazed forages like turnips and kale due to little sunshine and you can appreciate the perfect storm scenario many find themselves in along with the cost of bought in feed stuffs. Most dairy farmers are feeding more in terms of inputs to the cows than they would normally do, whilst the cows are struggling to perform as they should. The common voiced thread is 'feeding for 30, but only getting 27 out of them' even though the 'paper' forage tests suggest better quality than what is happening in reality. Have heard cases of silage values under wet analysis coming back 30% less in ME than NIRS tests.
May we soon have some warm weather so the crops start growing and we can get the maize in the ground!
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