June at Rawston Farm: with crops finally growing well, James Cossins enjoys the June lull crucial meetings on crop varieties and mental health
in the mid 1960s
The past two months have been exceptionally busy at Rawston Farm. We completed our maize sowing at the beginning of May, and saw rapid germination due to the moisture available in the soil and the lack of cold weather. The old saying for maize is ‘knee high by the beginning of July’ and we’ve certainly surpassed that – my two-and-a-half-year-old grandson Albie is dwarfed by the crop already!
The next task was harvesting our first cut silage, which went well even as we dodged the predicted showers. The clamps are full, but maybe some quality was lost by being a week or two late cutting. We have just recently completed our second cut, which was made during the recent hot spell, allowing the grass to be cut and picked up straight away due to the heat.
We then look to our cereal harvest, which will probably start in the middle of July. The combines have been serviced and the grain stores cleaned – they will now be fumigated to remove any lurking insects from the previous year’s crop.
The crops look more promising than they did coming out of the winter, and the spring crops appear to have caught up, so let’s hope for a reasonable harvest.
A problem shared
The month of June can mean a less intense workload, so I managed to get off the farm and attend a number of meetings. In the combinable crop world, various agricultural supply companies put on open days to show new varieties of wheat, barley and other crops to help growers decide on the best ones for their own farms. We try to chose a new wheat variety each year, and have now chosen one with good disease resistance and good yield. We have already sold some of it for next year‘s harvest – a premium price has been offered by the end user, for bread and biscuit making.
At these industry events, various trials are being carried out to see how some of the traditional nitrogen fertiliser can be replaced by using bio stimulants, while maintaining the same yield. It will be interesting to see the results: most growers would like to reduce the amount of nitrogen used, thereby ensuring less is leached away into watercourses, but we need to maintain the yield from the crop.
This month I also attended a mental health awareness workshop organised by Dorset NFU together with the Dorset Farm Community Network (FCN). It was a very interesting morning, hearing about and discussing mental health awareness issues with specific reference to farmers. The day to day of life working in agriculture can bring up many stresses – weather, animal disease, staffing issues, the loneliness of working, financial pressures and family issues, to name but a few. And it’s not just farming. I know many business owners suffer from similar pressures.
My take-home messages were that sharing problems with family, friends or fellow farmers can relieve the daily pressure of work – especially when you realise that you are not alone… and it’s reassuring to find other farmers have the same issues.
I know we farmers are not great at sharing or talking about our problems, but we must not forget that all those who work on the land have similar pressures with long hours and lone working. The FCN is a great organisation, giving space and time for issues to be shared, talked through confidentially and to provide help where necessary. The FCN farm walks are also excellent – it’s always great to look at other farms and talk to fellow farmers.
Finally, let’s hope for some good weather at harvest time after last year’s dismal July and August!
