From LEAF Farmer Duncan Farrington
September Newsletter
As I write
harvest is in full swing, or at least it should be if it wasn’t for another rain shower stopping play. Now I do realise that I have been accused of whinging about the weather from time to time; it is not that the weather is wrong, it just happens in the wrong order. This year has been the driest first six moths of a year for over eighty years. We are desperate for rain; in the last five months we have only had 108mm (four inches) of rain here at Bottom Farm. Then as soon as we want to start the combine and we need sunshine, the rain finally arrives. Oh well - that’s farming!
Because of the lack of rain, crop yields are inevitably down, but so far the quality of the crops are looking good, as are the prices, which are rising due to the immensely hot weather in Russia and the rest of Eastern Europe which normally produces a large amount of the world’s grain. Russia, which is the world’s third biggest exporter of grain, has put an export ban on their crops; this will inevitably lead to food inflation over the next few months.
We are taking time this year to carry out some drainage work on a couple of our fields. This was a practise carried out by farmers thirty plus years ago, encouraged by the Government of the day to increase food production. It involves specialist equipment to lay underground pipes allowing soils to remain reasonably dry in winter months, as roots of crops prefer growing in well drained soils compared to cold waterlogged soils. The last time I can remember fields being drained on our farm I was still in shorts with a pudding bowel hair cut, carried out with machinery built by Father and Grandfather. This time around, hopefully the hairstyle is a bit better, the machinery has long since gone to the scrap heap, and we are using a contractor for the work. When maintained correctly these drains can last for over a hundred years, so it really is a long-term investment in food production.
We have also noticed some new inhabitants for the latest owl box Gordon made earlier in the year. A barn owl was seen leaving the box the other evening. Whether or not this is a fulltime resident, with a family we don’t know as yet, but it is a good sign of things to come. I also saw Dr Mark Avery from the RSPB recently who was asking if we still have turtle doves around the farm, to which I was delighted that the answer is yes. Apparently these are becoming rarer locally, so I am pleased they are still here.
We will be shortly planting some margins of pollen and nectar rich plant species around the farm this autumn, which will take a couple of years to establish, but once created will encourage beneficial pollinating insects to thrive; pollinating our crops, eating pests such as aphids, and will themselves act as food sources for birds. This will be an exciting project which I hope will bring some good results in due course.
Anyway, it looks like the sun may soon come out, so time to go and see if we can harvest a bit more wheat.
