Steve Heard: Weather puts pests and disease on ice

Frozen ground has given us opportunity to tidy some hedges, while we can drive over crops without leaving a trace. It even provides support to reach a couple of broken land drains for repair.

Fortunately the snow cover had been sufficient to disguise most of my rape from pigeon attack, but now it has gone, let battle commence.

Autumn herbicide treatments are now revealed from under the snow and both November-applied Kerb and pre-Christmas Atlantis treatments seem to be working.

Needless to say the sprayer is still primed with anti-freeze - the calendar may be moving forward, but the crops seem held in ice storage. Hopefully untreated black-grass development will nicely await spring Atlantis applications. Continued low temperatures must help with crop pest control and surely aid a metaldehyde-free reduction in slug numbers.

With one of my full time employees having left for the warmer climate of the southern hemisphere, I am on the lookout for a suitable dynamic replacement. As one of the combine drivers, tractor drivers and relief spray operators, the role now demands a computer wizard as much as a capable operator, and hopefully someone with a commitment to the anti-social harvest hours.

Steelwork and grain walling have been ordered as we undertake to convert another shed for crop storage.

The extra 2,500 tonne capacity will hopefully allow us to store an increasing acreage but, at the expense of autumn season combine storage - perhaps an excuse to sell a combine and await delivery of a new one. I doubt it.

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