Steve Heard: Time to tackle the annual maintenance schedule

In an attempt to save money and justify quality full-time staff, all winter servicing is undertaken in house. Machines receive new wearing parts, repairs as necessary and often a modification along the way. Oil change and filters will wait until the machine is about to go to work.

An early visit from the county council man armed with spare parts for the snow ploughs and predictions for a hard winter usually means only one thing - we probably won’t be seeing snow again this year.

We retain a contract to operate four snow ploughs and a loading shovel, should it be necessary, enough to say I shall not be booking a holiday based on this income.

For once it looks as if I might have got something right - the early purchase of AN fertiliser was fortunately before the continued price increases.

The choice of product seems justified - published figures from this season’s trials again seem to show a better yield and margin generated from AN than cheaper urea product options.

Results of all this year’s soil samples have been analysed and DAP has been ordered for spring applications as required.

Indices seem to be easier to maintain now we chop and min-till, although we still feel obliged to bale some straw to pacify neighbouring livestock farms and be able to enjoy a beer in the local pub.

That said, I am a little nervous when the results from our routine tests are compared to the more detailed soil analysis undertaken during our exhaustive trials.

While some levels correlate nicely, some certainly do not and I am left wondering why there is so much variation? More importantly, I wonder which ones are correct?

I guess my question is can we ever know when, and in what conditions, can we accurately take our samples, or do I have to be realistic and accept there are too many potential variations and return to the tradition of annual blanket applications.

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