Wet Winters?

[Johnnyboxer]

We seem to have had a pattern in the last 5 years of very wet weather November to Feb leading to flooded land (grass and arable)

Has this affected (or will affect) your future farming trends - cropping and livestock?

Drying up a bit now, bit of fieldwork going on, but a lot of fields have paddy field lakes in them, which are completely unworkable and in some cases - 30/50% of the current field area is unproductive in March and April

What to do?

 

[DrWazzock]

Tell me about it. My fields are a patchwork of sand and clay. The sand isn’t really affected. It drains quickly. But the clay has slumped and ponded badly. It will dry eventually but often a bit late then to get a viable crop in. Looks like early autumn drilling or grass is the only option for it. OSR worked well on it. Early drilled and blackgrass controllable and the roots busted it. Now OSR is maybe non viable we are in a difficult position.

 

[GeorgeK]

Without subsidy I feel there's a lot of slow draining grade 3 arable that won't be viable for cropping in the future, and it's hard to justify major drainage work at current returns. We have some land over clay and some free draining, the difference is night and day. Surely areas prone to wet and steep slopes will have to be in grass or environment schemes in the future now the weather is making cropping it a lottery

 

[Johnnyboxer]

Tell me about it.

My fields are a patchwork of sand and clay. The sand isn’t really affected. It drains quickly.

But the clay has slumped and ponded badly. It will dry eventually but often a bit late then to get a viable crop in.

Looks like early autumn drilling or grass is the only option for it. OSR worked well on it. Early drilled and blackgrass controllable and the roots busted it. Now OSR is maybe non viable we are in a difficult position.

That was my point

Options are more difficult to choose and harder to make it viable

Autumn planted crops in some fields are looking either great or crap

 

[Johnnyboxer]

Without subsidy I feel there's a lot of slow draining grade 3 arable that won't be viable for cropping in the future, and it's hard to justify major drainage work at current returns.

We have some land over clay and some free draining, the difference is night and day.

Surely areas prone to wet and steep slopes will have to be in grass or environment schemes in the future now the weather is making cropping it a lottery

I thought similar

More marginal arable will surely need to be turned over to grass and some sort of livestock introduction

 

[GeorgeK]

I thought similar

More marginal arable will surely need to be turned over to grass and some sort of livestock introduction

That would make sense, meadow grass the 'weed' thrives on clay, holds soil together in the wet and keeps motoring through the worst of droughts. You'd think it ticks all the boxes being low input as well but for some reason it's not fashionable at the moment either to farmers or eco mentalists

 

[DrWazzock]

Cattle best for heavy ground. They are inside during the winter and leave enough cover to protect the soil and for the grass to get going in spring. Sheep tend to make a bowling green then poach it to death if left on it. But there are badgers everywhere and you have to TB test and can get locked down so it it isn’t very tempting. Queues at abattoirs, Newark market gone.
Plant a wood.

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

That would make sense, meadow grass the 'weed' thrives on clay, holds soil together in the wet and keeps motoring through the worst of droughts. You'd think it ticks all the boxes being low input as well but for some reason it's not fashionable at the moment either to farmers or eco mentalists

Maybe this just shows the error of ploughing out so much wet pasture in the "green revolution" following the '47 Ag Act.

I've been thinking for a few years that very few river valley bottoms would have been arable before that.

 

[Hindsight]

I thought similar

More marginal arable will surely need to be turned over to grass and some sort of livestock introduction

That would make sense, meadow grass the 'weed' thrives on clay, holds soil together in the wet and keeps motoring through the worst of droughts. You'd think it ticks all the boxes being low input as well but for some reason it's not fashionable at the moment either to farmers or eco mentalists

Maybe this just shows the error of ploughing out so much wet pasture in the "green revolution" following the '47 Ag Act.

I've been thinking for a few years that very few river valley bottoms would have been arable before that.

Price of Wheat, Price of Wheat, Price of Wheat,

 

[teslacoils]

But at the same time, drier summers? Subsoiled land night and day better than not this year. I'm just going to plough everything. Drains may be old, but a bit of tlc and maintainence is all that's needed.

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

But at the same time, drier summers? Subsoiled land night and day better than not this year. I'm just going to plough everything. Drains may be old, but a bit of tlc and maintainence is all that's needed.

Wetter winter with bigger storms and longer summer dry spells is essentially what we were told 20 years ago climate change would look like for the UK.

We all need to adapt our systems to compensate.

 

[Wombat]

Wetter winter with bigger storms and longer summer dry spells is essentially what we were told 20 years ago climate change would look like for the UK.

We all need to adapt our systems to compensate.

I was hoping for Northern Spain actually

 

[DrWazzock]

But at the same time, drier summers? Subsoiled land night and day better than not this year. I'm just going to plough everything. Drains may be old, but a bit of tlc and maintainence is all that's needed.

Mending drains is time well spent. Seriously considering just ploughing all here. Also because only the plough can be narrow enough to be pulled by a smaller lighter tractor yet still take its wheelings out. Mintill needs 200 hp minimum here as do direct tine drills.

 

[Johnnyboxer]

Wetter winter with bigger storms and longer summer dry spells is essentially what we were told 20 years ago climate change would look like for the UK.

We all need to adapt our systems to compensate.

That was my point entirely

Olive groves and black pigs anyone?

Vines?

 

[Chickcatcher]

@Johnnyboxer
Drying up you say in your first post, 8mm here overnight lucky we took the chance and drilled 20acres across the hill yesterday, up and down it perhaps would have washed away. We found a new to me wet spot being on a higher point in the field that I have never seen whilst farming it for 43years, impression given is its a spring that has burst out, so could even be some of the water that comes through the aquifer from you boys in "Yorkshire"

 

[jh.]

Mending drains is time well spent. Seriously considering just ploughing all here. Also because only the plough can be narrow enough to be pulled by a smaller lighter tractor yet still take its wheelings out. Mintill needs 200 hp minimum here as do direct tine drills.

If/when red is over a pound a litre will you still plough . Also if your on heavy ground there is usually extra passes before the drill . If you can plough and sow it's not heavy imo .

I'm looking at other options to try and leave the wet cheese below and keep the weathered tilth on the top . I was impressed how a claydon demo last spring took out harvest wheelings and also firmed the ground up to carry the combine better the following harvest.

I do see the day that if I can't find a machine to direct drill heavy fields they will have to go back into grass and livestock .

 

[Goweresque]

Wetter winter with bigger storms and longer summer dry spells is essentially what we were told 20 years ago climate change would look like for the UK.

Where are these drier summers then? The last 20 years have seen some of the wettest summers in the last century or more.

The blue colours denote a summer (June/July/August) that has in excess of 300mm of rain, which is way above the long term average of about 250mm. From 2004 to 2020 we've averaged nearly 300mm of rain per summer, from 1963 to 1995 the average was 219mm. Thats the difference between what for many farmers was their childhood and what is now their working experience. We are getting 3 inches of additional rain in the summer months over what we used to get in the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s.

1985 is seared on many farmers brains as a horrendously wet summer, yet at 343mm it wouldn't even be the wettest in the last 10 years now. Then such rainfall was unprecedented for decades, now it would be just another wet summer.

The climate has definitely changed but not the way the global warming 'experts' told us it would. And the thing is the current summer rainfall is not even that unusual for the UK. If you go back to the 1950s you'll see some equally wet summers. From 1946 to 1958 there were 8 summers with over 300mm of rain. The problem is that people just don't live long enough to be able to see the cycles and imagine that what they are experiencing is 'unprecedented!'. It isn't, and as it says in the Bible 'There is nothing new under the sun'.

 

[teslacoils]

Back to wheat, grass, plough, lime and muck here.

 

[organicguy]

The biggest issue with the rainfall is not the total quantity but how it falls.
Last year we had the longest dry period since 1976 but above average annual rainfall.
Nearly one third of our annual rainfall came in two rain events, so most of it was wasted.

 

[7610 super q]

Last years " drought " in April / May, didn't do much to affect yields. Lost more at harvest with the ever lasting rain in August.