Is the ‘Big Drill’ going to happen?

Chap

Member
See the high pressure has gone this week and heavy rain forecast on Friday . Still no crops in . Ground saturated, 13mm in last 24 hrs. High Mag soils, land drain running again tonight. turning into a perfect storm

Time ticking on.....
 

DRC

Member
The week after looks better, but they keep saying that, then changing their minds.
If it’s an consolation, the best crop of spring beans I ever grew, was drilled on 20th April.
Which crops are you hoping to sow.
 

Flat 10

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Fen Edge
Yes. It happened last week.
Runs for cover
11A24BCF-7486-43E2-BBCF-8780B76FFEE7.jpeg
 

Chap

Member
The week after looks better, but they keep saying that, then changing their minds.
If it’s an consolation, the best crop of spring beans I ever grew, was drilled on 20th April.
Which crops are you hoping to sow.
Spring wheat, spring beans, spring barley and peas, hopefully in that order, like the beans and wheat in by end of March . The ground here is rotten. Needs 2 weeks to be dry enough to travel ..... years like this shows what sh!t soil we have ! Worcester
 

Neddy flanders

Member
BASE UK Member
See the high pressure has gone this week and heavy rain forecast on Friday . Still no crops in . Ground saturated, 13mm in last 24 hrs. High Mag soils, land drain running again tonight. turning into a perfect storm

Time ticking on.....
was optimistic, but its fading. very very little drilled on this farm or within the county of Cambs.
7mm today means little will happen before Wednesday when more rain forecast.
 

MrNoo

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Cirencester
Worcester
Was up that way and on into Shropshire today and looked hellish wet in places but did also see some nice crops, WW and a fair bit of OSR looked good (from the road)
Here, it dried up nicely on Thurs/Fri but now back to square one again, may dare to bang some fert on and if dry enough turn some ground over, did think about drilling on Fri but it looked marginal and glad I didnt with the rain we've had.
 

Neddy flanders

Member
BASE UK Member
Blimey April better be good weather.
19th of march, only 10% of farm planted, all very badly. remainder is still sopping wet. land ploughed dry last September has water to the top of the furrow.
heap of winter bean seed looks at me every day. Agribuggy stuck on Wednesday.
7mm yesterday. today freezing and damp and forecast of high pressure shows cold and cloud. barely had a day to spray anything off.
The Big Drill aint happening......
 

DanniAgro

Member
Well, walked over the fields this morning and they are as sopping wet as they were in January, and it's well over half way through March.
I'm starting to think it was really dumb to buy that expensive spring barley seed as it won't be put in the ground until mid April at the earliest on my clay, and those with the forsight to plan a fallow will probably make as much profit as I will from a useless planted crop.
Just as a matter of interest, how many people here are planning fallow on their remaining acres?
 

DRC

Member
It’s very frustrating. Fields destined for spring barley are as wet as ever again, after a wet day on Wednesday .
The lighter fields I did get a bit of fertiliser on, are greening up, but no chance of getting on the heavier land with anything. Feel sorry for a neighbour that hadn’t planted anything, who took the plunge in those few dry days about three weeks ago with w wheat. It now looks a sorry mess with standing water.
 

ConanPB

Member
Been managing to do a little ploughing in the very occasional drier spells on our clay. Amazed at how much quicker it dries compared to our autumn pre-worked stuff which I'm aiming to plough also.
Think the wind direction is changing to come from the east, which will help.
Nothing dries like an easterly breeze on a sunny day in March:cool:
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

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Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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