Weather has given us farmers much to think about

While writing this article the heatwave we experienced in mid-summer seems but a distant memory, writes Rob Alderson.

However, during the midst of it, you wondered how long it was going to stay dry for; and it doesn't take long before the "doom and gloom merchants" start fearing the worst that a dry spell can do to the growth and potential yields of their crops; be it grass or cereal to name just two types of crops that are harvested throughout the year.

The very wet conditions that we were subjected to right the way through the harvest and replanting months of 2012, followed by the very cold start to 2013 made me very aware that the autumn planted crops on this farm were going to reflect a difficult growing period and that was all too plain to see by the amount of bare patches I had to pass over with the combine. In the worst affected areas I had re-drilled with spring crops, which made spraying and harvesting these fields a lot more time consuming and challenging.

I must congratulate the man responsible on the high density baler for managing to keep the two different crops separate as he must have made as many turns as I did myself on the combine.

With that said, this spring when it came, was ideal for establishing crops and having spoken with other farmers, these conditions made up for the very poor conditions of last year. The only concern was could farmers find enough seed to plant the large acreage that either needed to be re-drilled or hadn't been planted at all?

A downside to all this spring acreage is that we've inadvertently caused an imbalance in what types of grain we were able to grow; a large acreage of barley was planted, oats seem to have done well whether planted autumn or spring, and this is now reflected by a very low market price due to over-production. The price of wheat has risen marginally, trading between £30-£50 a tonne below last year's value.

Realising we are on a world market with world prices easing back, I was told by a grain trader that when they were looking for wheat with values of £180-£190 per tonne this autumn farmers were reluctant to market what they hadn't got, especially after last year's fiasco of over-selling and subsequently not having the tonnage to honour contracts. With this in mind this spring, mills have bought cereals to guarantee their supply and hence some of our cereals are waiting to find a home at this lower value.

Part of this year's challenge was getting the crops ripe enough to harvest to enable us to get the ground re-drilled in time before the weather changed and as this autumn appears to have turned damp the old adage don't leave until tomorrow what you can do today would have been advice well taken.

As realists, the legacy of last autumn's arduous planting conditions and the adverse weather that ensued, meant that this year's yields were going to be down; by how much – we'll only know when the last lorries have rolled over the weighbridge.

* Rob Alderson is a livestock farmer from Craven Arms