Farming Talk: We reverted to ploughing and drilling

The trailed drill did make an appearance one Sunday to drill wheat, but after getting stuck with it three times in the same field I put it back in the shed where I got it from.

Since then a new power harrow drill combination has been bought, and we have reverted to ploughing and drilling, the only way we hoped of making progress.

Even that is not easy. It is a slow process with the ground completely saturated, drilling straight behind the plough is just not possible without it having 24 hours to dry out first. For that you need two dry days together – not something that seems to have happened recently.

My biggest mistake this season was Sumo-cultivating all the oilseed rape stubbles after combining to encourage a chit. The rain has gone straight through the profile, making the soil heavy and wet both underneath and on top so ploughing has been difficult.

Aside from that the other real threat for those crops in the ground is the massive slug population. Wheat after rape has already had two treatments and is being monitored closely. I can't remember any other year when, before applying the slug pellets, you have to decide if the quad bike will travel on the field. Not good.

Potatoes have been lifted and despite the weather came out of the ground remarkably well. The field, however, is not fit to cultivate and until it dries out substantially the jury is out on what it will be cropped with. It is good for one thing at the moment; that is harbouring the local ducks, as five acres of it is still underwater!

The oilseed rape is looking good in some fields but poor in others. The free draining fields look well but as we had a lot of heavy rain soon after drilling the low lying fields have been wet for so long the rape simply has not germinated or has been eaten by slugs.

Some mild weather is needed to help these crops along, but what a complete contrast to last season.

Tim Cooke is an arable farmer near Telford