Field Margins by Rachel Young,

of Ballicherry Farm, Tain, Ross-shire

Though this is my November column, it’s still difficult to avoid the topic of harvest when discussing what we are up to just now on the farm.

Though we finished our own baling on October 15, we were still doing contract baling on the 28th – one of our latest finishes ever. There are still lot of bales lying out which we are trying to get tidied up, but struggling to do so due to the horrendous ground conditions.

I think a lot of people are still in the same boat, which, now I mention it, would probably be a much more appropriate choice of equipment at the moment for chasing bales than a tractor! Having a count up after harvest, we believe our bale count is back about 1000 bales on last year, which is due to the effect the wet weather and wuffling has had on the straw condition and volume.

Combined with that, many people that we buy straw from decided just to chop large areas as they needed to get in ASAP with winter crop or cover crop sowing, and didn’t want to risk having straw lying for weeks. Our winter wheat, which is grown for seed, was drilled by October 14, which is about a week later than we’d really like.

Due to the delay in drilling, we had to up the seed rate to 190kg/ha, incurring a cost increase of about £25/ha compared to if we had drilled it a couple weeks earlier at say 150kg/ha. Again, due to the wet weather we haven’t been able to get on with any pre-emergence herbicides yet. If we can’t get the sprayer on within the next few days, we’ll need to review the chemical choices with our agronomist, as there's no point throwing £20/ha pre-em on annual meadow grass if it’s already emerged.

The wheat is facing another challenge in the shape of migrating geese which are arriving in their tens of thousands to Udale Bay, an RSPB bird reserve which borders our farm. This week will probably be a good time to see if the gas gun that got taken in by the combine is still functional!

Aside from chasing bales and geese, we are starting to prepare for tupping our 150 ewes, and for the wintering cattle coming in the next week or so. The cows come down from a farm about 40 miles away in November and return home in mid-March for calving. We have been wintering cattle for about 15 years, on and off, and find it is an ideal system, as we have poorer ground unsuitable for constant cropping from which we make silage, and we are keen to keep dung on the place.

We feel dung is absolutely essential for maintaining soil health and helping to increase yields. We dispersed our suckler herd, with a heavy heart, about four years ago, finding that the everyday hassles which come with having cows all year always seemed to coincide with extremely busy arable spells, regardless of moving our calving. Following this, we increased the wintering cattle up to 100 head and increased the sheep numbers slightly as well.

The cattle are fed a basic ration of silage, draff and straw, and in previous year’s pot-ale syrup. However, we are finding pot-ale is becoming increasingly difficult to get hold of and is more expensive, so are unsure if we will use it this year or not.

Added to that, there's been the extreme inconvenience of trying to get empty pot-ale IBC’s out of the mixer wagon when dad has let them slide off the pallet forks trying to drain every last drop!

Though the weather is unremittingly grim, some new arrivals at my husband, Calum’s farm have cheered everyone up, with an aptly named Simmental cow, ‘Big Mamma’ having triplet bull calves, Tom, Dick and Harry, last week.

All three calves are doing well so far, though Calum reports Big Mamma is much less tolerant post-partum, I wonder why…?