With only a relatively small area of winter barley this year, Tom was hoping to both start and finish cutting it this week.

However, the weather has been disagreeable, with frequent showers and 15mm in the week leading up to Monday, with most of this falling last Saturday. There is only a tiny bit of lodging in the barley under trees, and there is no straw breakdown yet.

The winter oats are about a week away from being ripe, so Tom is looking for some fine weather next week too. The spring oats are standing out for Tom this year, but they won’t be cut until September.

The spring barley still looks ok too. All of the crops just need some sunshine to push them on.

Maize planted in sheltered fields has started to kick on in the past two weeks, but exposed fields haven’t caught up and are behind where they should be.

Tom has finished tidying up the last of the weeds in the carrots. This was done with a camera-guided inter-row weeder. There has also been continued slug activity in both the carrots and potatoes, so slug pellets have been applied.

The ground is relatively moist, so there has been little irrigation recently. However, the showers are quite isolated, so Tom is keeping an eye on this. The haulm was topped on the first of the salad potatoes last week.

Spotlight Plus (1l/ha) and Ranman Top (0.5l/ha) was then applied this week. These will hopefully be lifted in four weeks’ time.

Tom has found a lot of magnesium deficiency in the potatoes this year, which is unusual. He has been busy treating this, as well as with blight sprays. He says the dry matter of the potatoes is excellent so far.

With little sunshine this year, which is a major factor in potato dry matter percentage, Tom feels that this is down to reduced nitrogen levels in the soil because of nutrient leaching over the wet winter months.

Harvest is not due to start for more than a month, so Tony’s farm has been quiet recently. The spring beans are podding away, with 14 to 20 pods on each plant.

There is some chocolate spot on the lower leaves, and Tony says it is worse than other years. There are also large populations of black bean aphids. The beans have finished flowering and the recent rain should prevent any of the late flowers from aborting their pods.

The maize is at the eight-leaf stage. A second herbicide had to be applied to 40ac, as the weeds were starting to come back through more than Tony would like.

A sap analysis was carried out on the maize and revealed deficiencies in manganese and boron.

Therefore, the maize will get its final feed this week, containing Epso Combitop, amino acids, zinc, molybdenum, and boron. Tony is relatively happy with his maize and says that it just needs some sun and heat. The maize has turned a lovely green colour in the past couple of weeks.

Tony’s wheat looks excellent at the moment. There is no disease whatsoever in it and he is expecting a good crop. Tony had not submitted this in the Straw Incorporation Measure as he is banking on a strong demand this year.

However, he says the Minister’s intention to postpone the scheme this year is nonsense and is creating chaos.

He says it is unbelievable to change the deal at the start of the harvest and this will not result in much more straw on the market, with many farmers continuing to chop straw.

Tony says farmers have got used to chopping straw and are realising its value from a nutrient, time and hassle perspective.

He also says that if the scheme does go, there should be a new scheme to incentivise tillage farmers to take in organic manure, as tillage farmers are recycling the waste and solving the problem of the livestock sector

Sam is getting ready for the harvest and is playing the waiting game as his first crop to be cut won’t be ripe for about three weeks.

This is the winter oilseed rape. He says it looks like a good crop and it is all still standing, but the cool weather and lack of sunshine means it is slow to turn in.

However, this may be good for the final yield and will ensure that the pods keep filling for as long as possible. The winter wheat will follow afterwards.

This is also starting to turn in, but there is a lot of green still left in the crop. Sam thinks it could be up to a month before it’s ready to harvest.

The spring barley is filling its grain and looks to be a good crop. It is still standing despite heavy rain in the past week. The forage maize has really started to come on in the past couple of weeks and is now standing over 6ft tall.

The slight increase in temperatures has driven this. Sam is happy with how the crop is progressing.

He says that using the plastic has really shown its worth this year, and that while it’s expensive, it’s like an insurance policy.

The min-till maize planted without plastic is further behind, but Sam says this was expected, and only time will tell how the crops compare from a yield and margin point of view. Sam has some field margins and buffer zones in place in his fields this year, especially the maize fields.

He is currently looking at how he should manage these margins and buffers over the summer months, and will try out a couple of different options. He hopes to keep the weeds out of the margins and ensure they don’t get too wild.