As 2021 draws to a farming close, I am looking with increasing apprehension at 2022.

At the moment, we are bringing in the more forward cattle, those over 500kg liveweight, and trying to make up our minds on how they should be fed over the winter.

We still have not got the various cuts of silage analysed, but with the price of concentrates, the quality of the silage will have to be one of the deciding factors.

I know the temptation is to give them as much concentrates as will finish the dairy-bred steers out of the sheds, but 2021 was an extraordinary year, with a poor spring price, then a continuous increase in price until well into July and then no real autumn decline after that.

We will leave the lighter stores out mopping up the end of the grass and aim to have everything in by 1 December

The more weight gain at grass, the higher the profit. If this is to be the future trend, then it would make no sense to attempt to fatten dairy beef steers over the winter out of the shed without a firm contract in place.

We will leave the lighter stores out mopping up the end of the grass and aim to have everything in by 1 December, unless conditions disimprove dramatically.

I can only presume that things will settle down

Apart from feeding the cattle, I have begun putting tentative feelers out as to how fertiliser supply and prices are looking for next spring.

I can only presume that things will settle down, but one of my normal suppliers told me that he cannot get either a quote or a guarantee of supply.

Crops

Meanwhile, out on the land, all the winter wheat is now up, so there is only oats – the last sown of the winter crops – to emerge.

With the abolition of effective seed dressings, I am nervously watching a high level of crow and seagull activity in the oat crops and certainly, to walk across the crops, the evidence of pecking and scratching is very visible.

The new arrival of buzzards in the area has frightened them to some extent, but hopefully within a week, the slow emergence will be history.