It's been too long especially with the cliff hanger of the health and safety visit I left you on! Well, no I wasn't carted away we scored well with nothing too major to attend to - just LOTS of little things and the biggest folder of paperwork you can imagine - so that's my excuse -I have been stodging my way through it of an evening with the highlight of last week being my husand suggesting a night off to go to the cinema, my over-the-top reaction suggested i should take a few more evenings off form filling!
Today marks a very exciting day - the second week anniversary of my new gadget - I have become the proud owner of a 'dickey john' penetrometer ....clear your filthy mind - it's a soil compaction meter! Early findings have suggested blackgrass seems to thrive in soils of over 200lbs pressure in the top 3-6 inches. So now it's just a question of how to prevent these conditions forming???
Which is poinient for the clod bashing competition we've been taking part in which has now become a race against the rain (seem familiar?). So first wheats drilled and pre em'd, OSR racing away and seem to have passed the slug and flea beetle threats (famous last words). Loads of wheat left the farm in the past few weeks with £163 /t on the contract whoop whoop! -won't feel so excited in may when my load at £109 leaves -still the average is looking likely to be in the 140's which I can live with. I've also dipped my toe in the water with 2011 OSR at £300/t and added to my 2011 wheat at £130.
On the Nuffield score I have booked the Edinburgh conference in November and had more Aussies to visit-resulting in a rough school night on some truely dodgy liquers. I've had loads more soils and compost samples under the microscope and my first COMPLETLY dead soil not even a bacterial presence which is pretty worrying - the sample came from one of the worst blackgrass fields in the area. The better the microbiology the better the blackgrass situation.
To bring you bang up to date, today i went to an ODA breakfast meeting on grain market information and training - I feel a course coming on. They are a totally independant market information service, so bring on the futures bank account and the puts and calls!
Right, GPS variable rate maps to produce so will update you soon. -happy drilling.
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