- Location
- M6 Hard shoulder
Waking up nearly everyday last summer to beautiful sunshine was awful.........
Drying out, again!
- Thread starter jerseycowsman
- Start date
- Location
- M6 Hard shoulder
But I wholeheartedly agree not enough is far worse than too much rain
Cant say I enjoyed the farming side of it till mid September
Looking back through this thread, 55mm of rain mid September saved a lot of souls
- Location
- Ceredigion
Could do with a shower here but not harming yet. Still to cold
- Location
- East Sussex
Does it just want to go to seed? If it does what do you do? Just cut what you’ve got I suppose and hope for another go.
Ducati899
Member
- Location
- north dorset
Trouble is we didn't get any rain till October!
- Location
- Northern Ireland
Thats entirely subjective. Down south you think too dry is worse. Up north and west, we think too wet is worse. It's also soils. Everything, especially water, falls straight through sand. Passage through rich soils is obviously slower. Dare I say it, perhaps summer grazing isn't the most appropriate land use on sand in the south of England, if dry is the prevailing weather type?
Bottomless clay on some of the farm. 75% is clay on stone. 25% blown sand. The blown sand is no good for grazing cows at all. But the clay is normally okay. Only 35% of the yearly rain fall is the issue here.
- Location
- M6 Hard shoulder
good lagoon lining material
Sparkymark
Member
As dry as I have eve known it in May on this part of SE Cornwall. Streams are running very low and silage aftermaths are greening up but if no rain will just run to seed quick and give no quantity of second cut. A good steady inch of rain next week would be just perfect but I can’t see it on the forecast. Unusually the rain sweeping in from the Atlantic seems to be just north of us all the time.
Father always said a dry May was the most damaging month of the year (other than a washout August)
I was lucky and had a good first silage cut and shut up extra acres this year. I’m beginning to think that it will all be needed. Still have plenty of good barley straw in the shed which is rather reassuring at the moment
My grandad always used to say “A wet and windy May fills the barn with corn and hay!”
So i suppose the opposite is also true.
A little bit of drizzly rain here but only enough to dampen the dust down. The aftermaths are slow to freshen up.
Princess Pooper
Member
- Location
- East Mids
We only had 12mm in Sept and 20 mm in Oct! 323 for the year, 152mm so far this year.
Thats entirely subjective. Down south you think too dry is worse. Up north and west, we think too wet is worse. It's also soils. Everything, especially water, falls straight through sand. Passage through rich soils is obviously slower. Dare I say it, perhaps summer grazing isn't the most appropriate land use on sand in the south of England, if dry is the prevailing weather type?
I guess you can also flip that the other way, if it’s too wet up north that you have to house stock for months and months over winter maybe that’s not the best use of resources where as I can out winter all stick pretty confidently most years.
Think last year was exceptional. Hard proceeding winter, no spring, little grass in April May. Then extremely hot and dry right thought to October.
Ground is still recovering from that but I think most still have more grass than this time last year and first cut was better than last year.
From a crops point of view I planted spring barley a month earlier than last and winter crops look ok. If we get rain in the next week then that will do them the world if good.
Disease pressure is low, only done a T1 on the wheat and looks like T2 will be a head and shoulders which should save a few pennies. .
- Location
- M6 Hard shoulder
What's your annual expected ?
had e nuff
Member
- Location
- Durham
Puddle's here this afternoon.
- Location
- Northern Ireland
Yep. I wouldn't disagree with that. It just shows that there many more imperfect places to farm than perfect ones. There are costs everywhere you turn. Most of them are down to the location and challenges of the farm. For sure, cattle production without massive human intervention here just wouldn't happen. It's a reasonably productive place for six months of the year, and a disaster for the other six.
Honestly, what could we do without massive intervention? Very little. No out wintering of cattle possible, so if not allowed housing, then basically no cattle. Winter barley on only the lightest land, and there will be problems with that in a wet winter. We can grow wheat like stink, but too hard to get ripened, costly to keep disease off it in the damp August weather, and uneconomic drying cost. That leaves winter corn as the only crop that is economic and reliable. And sheep production to eat the grass. And Brexit would stuff that. Perhaps beefy should be growing maize and winter barley and potatoes than milking cows?
This is a cracking arable farm, apart from last 2 years. Same can be said about it as a dairy farm. Maize last year... 7.8t acre. Spring barley 1.6.
- Location
- Northern Ireland
Plenty of spring barley up this way averages 1.6 in an average year. Mind you it's not exactly professional grade.
- Tags
- maize