Farming in the Winter Months
December 14, 2011
Having come through a relatively warm, dry Autumn where work on the farm is as up to date as we can be, the question has to be when will winter begin, what will it be like and how will it affect the Oilseed Rape, (OSR).
As seeing into the future is not one of my strong points, predicting the weather ahead of us is somewhat difficult. Ask ten people what they think the weather will do in the next 3 days and the chances are somebody will be right.
Maybe it’s better therefore to say how we would prefer it to be. Sorry to upset many of you reading this, but as cold as you like. Last year with the cold winter, the OSR crop took no harm.
The only problem with cold weather is that you tend not to have much rain with it. We have yet to reach 75% of our annual rainfall this year. (I hope, in writing this I’m not talking up a very wet Christmas or Spring).
In general, the OSR crop heading towards Christmas is looking very well. Plant counts are where we would like them to be per square meter in order to produce strong healthy plants in the Spring. The soil remains dry and 50mm of rain before the New Year would not go amiss.
One thing is for sure, that none of us can change the weather that is heading our way!! So worrying about it is not an option. What we can do is adapt our management of the crop according to the weather that is thrown at us.
Happy Christmas and New Year from all at Larchwood Foods.
By Will Meen – Farm Manager
