At long last, we have begun some of the long postponed spring work. The first is to get the gluten-free oats sown. It should have been sown last autumn but we were caught by the weather.

As usual, the oats is following oilseed rape so that we can minimise cereal contamination of what has to be an entirely gluten-free crop, but over the wet winter, last year’s oilseed rape stubble has grown vigorously.

I suppose a side benefit has been that it has in fact functioned as a catch crop and absorbed a lot of nitrogen, but it is hard to see it being ploughed down successfully, so we have two realistic options – either apply Roundup or disc it.

We have decided to disc the field and then plough and sow with the one-pass after it has been inspected for cleanliness.

This will, all going well, be the first time that we have sown our oats in the spring and I am resigned to a yield at least half a tonne lower than normal, as well as some extra costs from disking, but first we have to get the work done.

One of the unexpected benefits of the oats ground being unsown until now is that we had somewhere to go with the slurry as ground conditions improved, rather than going out on to grass that was too advanced to have slurry applied.

Where any compaction or even short-term flooding has occurred, the crop is non-existent

We were back grazing the lightest youngest cattle by day and bringing them in for silage in the evening but they are now back in full-time again.

We are continuing to buy in young cattle as we sell beef out and with the slurry in the slatted houses now reasonably under control, things are more comfortable than they were even 10 days ago.

Immediate job

The most pressing immediate job is to get the first split of nitrogen out on the winter barley and particularly the oilseed rape. It’s very clear from looking at the oilseed rape crops that they have absorbed nitrogen from the soil, but I reckon that in both crops, about 20% of the field will be totally bare and effectively have no crop.

Where any compaction or even short-term flooding has occurred, the crop is non-existent.

We are essentially, I reckon, paying the price for September sowing after a really difficult August in 2023.

Some of the winter barley has similarly suffered, but the percentage loss is less.