Never come across a clay land farm with no ditches or drains before.This autumn and last year have well and truly shown the value of soil structure, and highlighted in particular where problems exist.
My farm is generally grade 3 heavy silty clay loam with flints, with a decent chunk at 55%- 60% forecast establishment rates, according to Soyl. It also has no land drains or ditches, but it does have some hills. Its renowned locally as a wet farm, but will comfortably do 10t ha in a 'normal' yr.
Extremes of weather are obviously a major challenge at the moment, and the thing that exercises me most is how to improve resilience. Spring 'droughts' I can cope with, more or less. 6 inches of rain over an october weekend I can't.
Obvious solutions:
Get some grass leys with deep rooting legumes etc into the rotation. Fine- i have put in 1/4 of the farm down for 2 yrs. All well and good but no schemes available as still in hls, and will only earn sps and a few pennies from sheep, but basically naff all, after topping etc.
Got some compost. There isn't any.
Zero till. Great theory, but have struggled thus far. 4 yr experiment looked good - loads of worms, walked cleaner etc, but consistently underperformed at harvest, and then c35% of the winter barley on it failed due to wet feet last year.
Cover crops. Only managed to grow one decent one ever. Timeliness of establishment usually a challenge if wheat not off till end of Aug.
Plaster it with muck. I'd love to, but there isnt any.
Diverse rotations. Have dropped osr this year, and now have a mix of wheat, grass, beans, linseed and oats, probably.
Subscribe to direct driller. I do.
Smaller tractors and bigger tyres. Tricky one- timeliness in seemingly ever decreasing weather windows vs tiptoeing along when you can. Ultimately only damage limitation rather than improvement.
Have i missed anything? What are others doing? With forecast rain tonight I'm at the point of shutting the gate till spring, in the less than comforting position of knowing that a decent chunk of my winter wheat isnt going to make it, not counting the stuff that's still in the bag...
Must be others in this boat?
Thanks