Farm Diary

My early drilled maize is up and thriving on the warm conditions; what luck it was that we took the risk. All the maize was drilled by the end of last week bar one area, where we are carting more muck, before cultivations and drilling.

All the cows have been out a week, and are enjoying the sunshine. They were all vaccinated last week with the 'Blue-tongue' vaccine, and we look forward to the day that they are totally immunised (around mid June).

We are cutting grass silage as I write this, and I hope to have most of it in the clamp by now. With all the moisture still in the ground, I look forward to a good second cut, and the quality of this first cut should be the best ever; the object being to cut down on expensive concentrates next winter. We will see.

I spent 3 hours last Friday filling in forms in order for my milk buyer to calculate my 'carbon-footprint'. This is so that they can calculate the average for the total supply, and then set about reducing it overall; nothing wrong with that, just as long as we are all being sensible (quite a lot to ask these days I'm afraid).

However, in order to be 'green', I need a profit, for investment and to enable us to do everything to the highest standards.

For full feature see West Sussex Gazette May 14