Suddenly the harvest of 2022 is slipping from memory as we worry about the autumn schedule for planting as well as cattle purchasing and housing.

This week, we are concentrating on getting the fields cleared of the wheaten straw so that we can get oilseed rape sown.

This has never happened me before where we could realistically aim to follow wheat with oilseed rape.

Will it be the new norm? Obviously I don’t know but if it is, it means we reduce our acreage of winter barley. This has now become our least profitable crop by quite a distance.

Earlier sowing

Part of the reason is undoubtedly due to earlier sowing which is encouraging barley yellow dwarf virus.

This is something that we can no longer control with a reliable seed dressing as satisfactorily as we used to.

Of course following wheat with wheat or barley is basically a recipe for take all which, after this year’s barley harvest was clearly identified by our input supplier.

His diagnosis was backed up by high screenings, low bushel weight and a carpet of green stubble from the small but viable grains blown out the back of the combine.

I have a neighbour who consistently gets excellent winter barley yields by following oilseed rape but I am, at least at this stage, not willing to sacrifice such a favoured place in the rotation.

Assess

So we will take this year’s early wheat harvest as giving us this window and then stand back and assess. Part of the real uncertainty this year is around fertiliser prices.

We are making maximum use of slurry this autumn, though I recognise that spreading it in the August period is not using the nitrogen as efficiently as if it was being used in the spring.

I presume that these are exceptional times in the fertiliser business, but to be on the safe side I have gone ahead and bought forward about half my nitrogen requirements for the spring of 2023.

Imports

This year also we have imported some organic manure with a permit from the Environmental Protection Agency, specifying how much I could use.

I hope the importation will reduce some of my P and K bills.

As we prepare to sow the oilseed rape, we are also preparing to desiccate the beans. This will be mainly an exercise in clearing up weeds, though it should also lead to a more even ripening of the crop.

As the warm, comparatively dry weather continues, we are seeing the cattle getting through the grass quicker than I would like, while regrowths are definitely below what they would normally be.

Usually we have an early September surge in grass growth, but I am wondering if it will come this year with some watercourses that usually, but not always, run throughout a normal summer completely dry this year.

We had considered taking a third cut of silage to boost our winter feed stocks but at this stage, we have abandoned that idea.

Instead we will keep all the hay that we made and incorporate more of it in the diet feeder and hopefully stretch out the silage that way.