The year round: Short but respectable barley

Straw will be a significant item this year but with the crop being less than knee high, there won't be many bales to the acre.

Thank goodness corn prices have lifted as we have had two years of unsustainable prices. But will it go down or will the lovely speculators drive it higher? May be time to sell some forward.

The rape will be combined next. After the swather went through, leaving the crop laid in rows to dry, I checked for slugs and for the first time I never found one, so hopefully we can get away without slug pelleting at drilling time.

The day after swathing, my neighbour rang to say that he had just been to his field next to ours, to see if it was ready for desiccating as he decided not to swath this year.

Too late, my contractor had already felled it after confusion about our boundaries!

Looking at the wheat, I think we have been very fortunate in this part of the country that with the help of a bit of rain at the right time, the crop has not suffered with drought too much.

Although they look a bit thin due to the cold spring, I still think they have potential.

We are now into our third crop of "standard" broilers. The birds leave the farm at a younger age, the sheds are stocked more heavily and we get an extra crop in each year. This is totally opposite to what I wanted, but we have to produce what the market wants.