Written by Louise Penn from Ceres Rural
As much as I’d like to avoid discussing the weather after this challenging season, it continues to demand our attention. I am writing this after nearly 230mm of rain has fallen in 48 hours in my local area! Houses are flooded and roads impassable where I have never seen water before. Consequently, here I am writing about everyone’s least favourite subject but the one that is on everyone’s minds.
My immediate worry is the upcoming drilling campaign. After a difficult year, many growers are eager to get started, and I can’t blame them. Until recently, it’s been dry in my area—so much so that I’ve had to write off failed oilseed rape crops due to a lack of moisture. These past few weeks have been spent reminding growers why we shouldn’t rush to drill early. One of the primary reasons is grassweed management, particularly blackgrass, where emergence declines by 15% each week from early September to mid-October. Delaying drilling is also important to mitigate against diseases and Barley Yellow Dwarf Virus (BYDV).
Best case scenario this leaves my growers with no choice but to start drilling once ground conditions are suitable- likely not until the start of October now. The recent rainfall will have encouraged blackgrass to chit, providing the perfect opportunity for a stale seedbed before drilling. Additionally, residual herbicides will perform better in October due to less UV degradation and increased soil moisture, maximizing the effectiveness of these costly inputs.
Growers should begin with fields that have the lowest grassweed pressure and carefully monitor weather windows ensuring all operations can be carried out. A smooth process—pre-drilling glyphosate, drilling, rolling, and pre-emergence herbicide application—will be key. Here’s hoping that we’ve already seen October’s share of rain and we get a dry start to the month, allowing us to wrap up the drilling campaign efficiently.
Looking ahead, I can’t shake the growing concern over the increasingly extreme and frequent weather events we’re witnessing. It seems every year brings new records—whether it’s the relentless rain of this season or the heatwaves, droughts, floods, and wildfires playing out on a global scale. While it’s clear that climate change is a major driving force behind these shifts, reversing the damage done feels daunting, if not impossible. The bigger question is: are our soils, and by extension our farm businesses, resilient enough for these ‘unusual’ or ‘extreme’ years to become the new norm?
We are going to have to adapt our farming systems to make a living as these extreme events become more frequent. How we do that is still unclear, but I believe it starts with having healthy soils—soils that possess the right physical, biological, and chemical characteristics to withstand the pressures of climate change.
Resilient soils are those that can recover their functional and structural integrity after a disturbance, whether that’s ploughing, high-intensity rainfall, or prolonged drought like we experienced in the summer of 2022. Building this resilience, however, takes time—decades, even.
Following this weekend’s extreme rainfall, our soils at home are in good order. Most of the nearly eight inches of rain has infiltrated through the soil, thanks to the years we’ve spent transitioning to a minimum tillage system. We now use a low-disturbance subsoiler for deeper compaction and direct drill using our Dale Drill. In contrast, the soil erosion occurring in neighboring ploughed fields is staggering.
This resilience isn’t the result of recent practices alone; it’s the outcome of decades of thoughtful decisions. My grandad’s decision to drain the entire farm back in the 1970s, when it was grant-funded, laid the foundation. Equally important has been the ongoing maintenance of those drains—every year, we hire a digger for a few days to repair drains. Thanks to that consistency, those old clay drains are still doing their job, and we continue to invest in new drainage whenever possible.
Annually, we apply organic manures such as sewage sludge across the farm and chop the majority of our straw. My Dad’s knowledge of our farm continues to amaze me; he can pinpoint where soil types change, identify acidic patches, and recognize areas that often run short on phosphorus (P) and potassium (K). Recently, we took this understanding a step further by having our entire farm terramapped for pH, P, K, and organic matter. This advanced scanning technique generates high-resolution mapping layers, providing detailed insights into the soil properties across our fields.
The results were enlightening: our soil showed remarkably little variability compared to other clients’ farms, with no areas falling low in pH, P, or K. Our organic matter levels averaged an impressive 5-6% throughout the farm, enhancing our soil’s ability to retain moisture during dry periods and absorb water during heavy rainfall. Additional testing has also showed our soils have unfavourable calcium-magnesium ratios, so we have applied gypsum across the farm this autumn to help improve soil structure which will promote further air and water movement.
Historically, farmers have often managed crops with a somewhat casual approach, applying inputs as needed without much thought to long-term implications. A wet or unproductive area is now simply put into ‘SFI’ without much thought into the root cause of the issue or exploring longer-term solutions. However, with tightening margins and increasingly unpredictable weather, this practice is no longer sustainable. We must prioritise soil resilience, which begins with getting the basics right. Low pH and nutrient deficiencies compromise soil health, hindering root growth and diminishing the populations of beneficial organisms like earthworms and microbes. These conditions create weaker soils that struggle to recover, making crops more vulnerable to the extremes of climate change.
With attention to detail, we can develop soils that are resilient enough to handle the challenges of extreme weather, ensuring not only good yields now but also long-term sustainability for our farms. I’m optimistic about the solid foundation we’ve built on our family farm to achieve this. Plus, I’m eager to support my clients across various farming businesses as they navigate these changes and adapt to the unpredictability of the weather. Together, we can cultivate a future where our agricultural practices thrive, regardless of the climate’s whims.
