How Wet is your ground

Al R

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
West Wales
Never known ground as dry as this in Nov before. Plenty round here on spreading muck with no mess. Lots of cattle still grazing, makes the winter alot shorter (unless we pay for it in the spring).
My Dad went rolling new leys the other day with a tractor on 420's with a 8ft roller, 40acre rolled, he then topped another 50acre.

22mm in November so far (last night we were forecast 13-16mm and had 3mm) , I'll have a look at what September and October were but they were very wet but ground has dried well here with dust on the lanes/fields until the rain last night.
 

cattleman123

Member
Location
devon
We are unbelievably dry and are beginning to get concerned as there is no reserves of water in the ground. The ponds and streams are bone dry and the main reservoirs are now around 30%.
There is no sign of any rain and I was told the EA are applying for drought orders to take extra water from the rivers, however there is so little coming down they might not be able to.

We had 16 mm of rain last night but it just disappeared, cattle all out and the grass is growing away from the sheep!!

We are a country of contrasts.
Most certainly...at least we have plenty of water
 

Muddyboots

Member
Location
Suffolk
We are seriously dry. Had very little rain for weeks now, it just peters out before it gets here. Cannot sumo or plough cover cropped land as like concrete.
 

GTB

Never Forgotten
Honorary Member
My Dad went rolling new leys the other day with a tractor on 420's with a 8ft roller, 40acre rolled, he then topped another 50acre.

22mm in November so far (last night we were forecast 13-16mm and had 3mm) , I'll have a look at what September and October were but they were very wet but ground has dried well here with dust on the lanes/fields until the rain last night.
:scratchhead:
 

GTB

Never Forgotten
Honorary Member
Hard to think your 70mile north of us I bet?
There were people on silage most of the week - and not desperate 2nd cuts but glorious 5th and 6th cuts!
I couldn't believe how wet it was today. It must have pee'd down during the night. Went to move some lambs this morning and going across a fairly moderate slope I lost control of the quad. Just could not get it to go where I wanted. Lucky there was a gate at the bottom or I'd have been walking home..
We put all our wether lambs inside yesterday. There's some grass left outside but they just aren't finishing. It's just constantly wet here and has been for months.
 

Al R

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
West Wales
I couldn't believe how wet it was today. It must have pee'd down during the night. Went to move some lambs this morning and going across a fairly moderate slope I lost control of the quad. Just could not get it to go where I wanted. Lucky there was a gate at the bottom or I'd have been walking home..
We put all our wether lambs inside yesterday. There's some grass left outside but they just aren't finishing. It's just constantly wet here and has been for months.

A dry windy week which has been hard work trimming bellies on fat lambs this week as wool has been blowing up into my eyes, there have been no puddles on the ground since the 12mm after Brian.
3mm last night/this morning and it hardly wettened anything, certainly no hoofprints off the heifers when they ran up to me for feed this morning.
 

steveR

Member
Mixed Farmer
On the Blackdown Hills we have had a very wet past 3 months, drove in the field today with Tractor and nearly got stuck and this was the dry part of the field, straw has been abandoned to rot, neighbour cut his corn with the mower and wraped it up , drive 6/7 miles off the Blackdowns and you could drive a car around the fields,just amazes me how a few miles can make such a difference, told its bad in Cornwall as well.

Part of our wettest field on the farm was reseeded in mid Sept into a rather dry seedbed, and it got up and going like a train. Last week, I mowed the stuff, then baled and wrapped it... Never before in 40+ yrs of farming have I conserved grass so late...(y) And never on such land....;)

Moo Moos (as my daughter calls them!) still out, and tidying up the late flush of grass.
 
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DRC

Member
Starting to turn sticky here, but ponds are all dry.
Cattle still out and I managed to finish spraying yesterday, before heavy rain last night.
Feel for you lads in parts of the country that's had it very wet.
 
Saturated here although so far this winter we have had 3 frosts! First I’ve seen in two yrs
Just walking out land leaves black muddy foot prints , sheep will be coming in early I think
 

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