Home Farm: spring tillage work continues

They say no two years in farming are the same and that certainly applies to 2025. It has probably been the easiest tillage spring for many years. All the crops have had their first dressing of an NPK compound and the winter barley and oilseed rape have had their first split of nitrogen.

Some time ago, we bought most of the season’s needs as bulk calcium ammonium nitrate (CAN) with sulphur. We cleaned out a hay barn with a high roof and concrete floor and had it delivered last week.

At this stage, most of it is spread. With a dry season, I must admit to being more comfortable with CAN than straight urea on cereals but that may be as much a generational preference as having real evidence. But we will use protected urea on the land we intend closing up for silage over the next week or 10 days.

We have also bought in some straight potash following our soil samples showing low K (potassium) on the silage ground. This year has also been unusual in that all the wheaten straw has been cleared, both from the 2024 harvest and whatever bits that were left over from the year before.

We have never had all the straw removed by the end of March before and I can only assume that there is a buoyant demand from the mushroom composters. I will be interested to see if this demand applies to oaten and oilseed rape straw.

So far we have not filled in our BISS application form when we specify what straw we intend to put into the straw incorporation scheme but unless I get a firm offer for the oaten and oilseed rape straw, we will chop them as usual.

We are waiting for the beans to emerge. They have been rolled and treated with a pre-emerge and with a level of crow activity in the bean fields, the sooner they are above ground the better.

On the cattle side, we are continuing to replace each load of beef that goes to the factory with light stores for grazing. We still have some of our own barley which a neighbour with good facilities stores and rolls for us.

The barley is lasting well as we are supplementing it with maize in an effort to keep the forward cattle moving to take advantage of the current prices. With the benefit of hindsight, we needn’t have been in any hurry to get them finished as the price has risen week on week.

With most of the stores out day and night at this stage, we have plenty of room in the sheds but how to profitably use them at current cattle prices is another question.

One result of the heavier-than-usual feeding is that the slurry needs added water to be able to agitate it properly. It also seems that the effect of the additive we added to it several weeks ago has worn off. There seems to be new developments coming in this area so we will keep an eye open as new products emerge.