as last summer, we missed a lot of the rain, but now, we have had 3 good soakings, gave up measuring, to down heartening. Saying all that, we used to be known as a really good grass growing farm, we can no longer say that, july and august, could be dry, and have grown rape for then, as insurance, but often not really needed, this year, the seed hasn't all germinated yet, last year, some took 7 weeks to germinate ! The cost of that, going forward, is the unknown, do we change the way we farm ? After all, this is the third dry year on the trot, yet, it wasn't that many years ago, we had to house the cows in june ! Altering a system, can be expensive, and requires some serious planning, over the last 2 years, we have changed from autumn to spring calving, which, for us, in many ways, was the correct thing todo, but, after x3 of drought, was it ? We very nearly, sold the dairy, this spr, as far as TB clear, and day booked, the intention being to quietly restock, over the summer, but decided, we had achieved our spr herd, early.
my son has stopped telling me, spring reseeds are fine, I've been telling him the opposite for years. But, as we all know, years differ, and sometimes they are great. 50yrs of experience, versus 15yrs !!!!!!
I must be lucky .
my cut off date is oct 5th, quite happy in most fields till then, couple n facing in the bottom, a no go, and couple of exposed fields on the top. Even though we are 50+miles from the coast, on those exposed fields, there's not a lot of high ground in between ! Farmers laugh at that, but, change their minds once they look, maize, for example, will be 6/7ft at base of slope, going down to 18/24 ins at brow, then slowly back up to 6/7 ft again, over the brow ! Used to be the best place to make hay, when it was old p/p, used to get hell of a crop, nearly dry before cutting, 1 turn, then bale !
Always chancing it after 1st September here, in the North on bodied land. As a consequence, planning for after WW is risky, much better after wholecrop or WB. Grazed by sheep over winter and you can't stop it in the spring.
How big is the field and how many mushrooms ?
No rain today. I'd estimate 3" since mid March. A few more changeable days, then back to dry weather again. Drought could still be on for us here.
60mm...2.5"......less than I thought. We didn't get anything in April / May.
Better than a poke in the eye with a thatch peg . Bet you not heard that for a good many years60mm...2.5"......less than I thought. We didn't get anything in April / May.
We did finally get a few minutes of light rain followed by 5 of torrential rain before easing off and leaving us with 5mm on Friday, weekend nothing but a few drops.Glad we’re not the only ones still in the grip of a severe drought. 12.25 mm in last six weeks. Forecast keep banging on about rain but it just disappears before it gets here.
