Rhino: a month in the life of an Oil Seed Rape plant
Weather . . . or not I’m sure I will have mentioned this before (if so I can’t recall when) but I often say to friends visiting from abroad that …
Global Food Shortages
Weather or not Today (6th June) my heart is singing (quietly to itself, you understand) like the blackbird in the rain in our garden. We have had the best part …
Farming and Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Weather or not Provisional Met Office rainfall figures show that March 2011 was the driest for 60 years across the UK and for 100 years in some parts of eastern …
Oakley: a month in the life of a wheat plant continued
If you walk along the top of Crackle Hill and then downhill towards Polehanger you will notice a big difference between the wheat crops on view from the top of …
Thoughts on the Mega Dairy
Arable crop farming is by its very nature, seasonal and annually repetitive. I have now been compiling this diary for more than a year and should really be looking back …
Form Filling and the Single Payment Scheme
Hands up who likes filling in forms? April / May is full of it for businesses. To start with there are the usual year end Tax Returns. I always get …
Industrial Farming
Easter will long be gone when you read this but, as I write, it is Good Friday and it is damp and cold. Last episode I confidently predicted spring, triggered …
Spring-time musings
As I write on March 13th, the influence of the long cold winter is still very evident. There are no daffodils in bloom down our farm drive yet, no leaves …
Climate Change Confusion
The weeks of January are fast becoming a distant memory as Snowdrops and birdsong herald Spring, but the snow that fell and laid for an unusually long period for these …
Land Mapping Frustrations
It is with considerable relief that I can report what you will have already been noticing on either side of the road as you drive out of the village and …