Despite the wet weather and a northerly air stream, soil temperatures have edged up to 14-15°C. At this level, temperature is not a particularly limiting factor for grass or cereals, and, with lots of sunshine and moisture, the effect is clear.

I have never closed up for first-cut silage as late. I am taking some comfort that the closed areas were really well grazed out or zero-grazed, but I still want to be able to wilt high-quality vegetative material to achieve good preservation and high feeding value in about a fortnight’s time.

No maize

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I have for the first time in about 10 years no maize. Ironically, just this week I got my analysis for my 2015 crop back from the laboratory. The delay was not their fault but mine, as I had a lot of maize silage left over from last year and did not get into the 2015 material until well into March. I was pleasantly surprised at the results, with a dry matter of exactly 30.0%, a starch of 28.8 and an ME of a really satisfactory 11.8. Last year was reckoned to be a particularly difficult one for maize, but the combination of plastic and an early maturing variety, to let me sow winter wheat, showed what maize can deliver, even in a poor cold summer.

However, with no maize this year, I am wondering what to feed the cattle going out to grass next spring on over the winter. With such a poor demand for straw over the last few years, I am coming to the conclusion that I should feed and chop at least my oaten straw and supplement it with our own beans and top up with some silage, molasses and minerals.

Organic matter

I reckon that the organic matter of our tillage ground is being kept up with a regular application of cattle slurry and that chopping straw with the combine is unnecessary.

Chopped straw with slurry on top of it can make ploughing more difficult, so I am leaning towards removing as much of the barley and oaten straw as possible.

I am assuming that the wheaten straw will go for mushrooms – but looking at the piles of straw still around me in the area I am not so sure.

It will have to be pre-sold before I take a chance and bale it.