What a roller coaster the 2023-24 growing season has been.

Crops have picked up hugely over the past six weeks and for the first time this year I’m starting to feel a bit of excitement about the prospect of getting a combine into them.

This is made all the better considering at times over the winter I was seriously concerned that we’d end up with a tiny area to harvest, of which most might be average at best.

See also: How to get the most from SAM2 overwinter cover crops

About the author

Billy Lewis

Billy Lewis farms 140ha in Herefordshire in partnership with his parents. They keep Hereford cattle, sheep and grow combinable crops including winter wheat, winter oats and spring beans. He also contract farms an additional 80ha.

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This spring for the first time we’ve been sending off leaf samples for sap analysis.

I was worried it was going to be complicated getting the samples safely and in a timely fashion to their destination in the Netherlands.

However, we’ve had no issues and received the results within a number of days.

In our drive to cut fungicide and fertiliser use, ensuring we have a healthy soil and a plant that is free from any type of nutrient deficiency is vital.

Results have shown that the crops have been lacking mainly in molybdenum and magnesium – two nutrients that are crucial for nitrogen use efficiency.

This year wheats have been grown on 115-140kg N/ha so it’s important they make full use of it all.

This is slightly higher than I was hoping for but sap analysis revealed that the crops were in need of it, allowing us to tailor our N rates to what was truly required.

Wheats are spotlessly clean of weeds this year after just one application of a spring herbicide to sort out a bit of meadowgrass and groundsel.

There’s a small amount of ryegrass present in my oats, which I’m steadily roguing out as I’d like to keep some oats for seed.

I’d given up on them at one point but I chanced chucking on 70kg N/ha back in April and they’ve made a miraculous recovery.

There hasn’t been a sprayer through it so it’s going to be a seriously cheap crop to grow.

I do however have a horrible feeling that a plant growth regulator would have been beneficial as I walk through the crop and it’s up to my chest.

Here’s hoping we don’t have any stormy weather in August.