Never do I remember getting all the autumn crops sown in such good time and in such good conditions.

At this stage they look full of potential, with the tramlines now visible in the winter wheat and the gluten free oats sowing finished off last week.

Will the potential translate into acceptable profits? That depends on so many things outside our control: market price at harvest, weather and the price of inputs – especially fertiliser.

We have, in line with the new regulations, sent off to the Department of Agriculture our closing stock of fertiliser on hand.

From a farmer’s point of view, the new regulations look simple enough to comply with, but reading the regulations around the new fertiliser regime, it seems a pity that there doesn’t seem to be automatic publication of stocks of fertiliser in the country at critical times of the year.

With wildly fluctuating prices of fertiliser over recent years, the monitoring and minimisation of prices to farmers should be a central aim of Government policy.

On the cattle side, we now have about one third of our cattle in the sheds, with the rest still outside finishing off aftergrass and some paddocks with good covers.

Winter housing

Given the mediocre prices of this year’s harvest, we have sent off more of our own barley than usual to be stored and rolled and delivered back to us.

I reckon we should have enough of our own to get us to around late March/early April before having to buy in feed on the open market.

We look to be on target to have a few loads ready by late November, but all we can really do is sell as they become fit. Performance at grass over the summer has been below last year’s.

So far we haven’t worked out the final figures, but initially it would seem that weight gain on the reseeded paddocks has been better than from the permanent pasture.