Ears emerging

By Peter Lundgren, The Farmer

A few days of warm weather after a horrible cold week here in Lincolnshire and the wheat ears are emerging. The crop is looking well with plenty of wheat ears and relatively disease free – maybe not as dark a green colour as I might expect but then its had a lot less nitrogen and the recent cold weather has caused the tips of some of the leaves to turn brown.

The ears will emerge fully over the next few days and then we just need plenty of moisture and sun in the right quantities to fill the grain and give us a good yield.

There are some patches of blackgrass in the field. Sadly its almost inevitable that herbicide tolerant blackgrass is present so I’ll need to walk through the crop pulling up (or rogueing) the blackgrass plants by hand. Any volunteers for rogueing at the next open day?

I’m also nearly ready to erect the timber-framed barn – you may have seen the heaps of timber in the yard at the last open day. The timber is now all cut out and the mobile crane is booked for the 30th June to put up the first stage. You don’t see many timber framed barns being erected these days and again any volunteers to help with erecting the frame will be very welcome.

Please feel free to read through questions and responses from the Field of Wheat collective members and the Farmer.