An extraordinary year in which yields of every crop except wheat have been as high, or higher, than we have known them before. Sugar beet, above all, has been little short of miraculous. prices, as one would expect, have been unspectacu lar, but overall our results have been good.

The reasons for the high yields must be the weather; all over northern Europe the situation is similar, whether it be the grape harvest in champagne, sugar beet in Schleswig-Holstein, maize in Bavaria, wheat in Denmark of barley here in Cambridgeshire. The winter was exceptionally cold and on two nights the temperature fell to 16 degrees below zero centigrade. Spring, however, was almost perfect and summer gave us a particularly easy harvest.

Ano ther factor has been that the cost of inputs has not risen as far as in previous years. Machinery prices increased, but the days when tractor prices rose every three months are over, and the competition between dealers in now unhealthily keen. Chemical prices have, in many instances, actually come down; perhaps our trip to France with the lorry last autumn did more than simple enable us to buy Dicurane and Avadex cheaply. Fertiliser prices have held steady, and seed costs have risen by only a small am ount. Thus most of our inputs have not increased much, with the exception of wages which rose by 12% - managing to keep pace with inflation.

CEREALS (1750 acres)

The wheat never looked very good, so we were not entirely surprised by the disappointing results. Our low seedrates (never more than one hundredweight per acre) were not enough in the face of a very cold winter, and the plant population was not high enough. In addition we experienced a lot of fungal disease after ear-emergence whi ch was impossible to control. Fusarium and Botrytis never used to be a problem nut we see a lot of them these days and it is hard to know what can be done. Another feature of the wheats was the very big difference in yield between first and second year crops. Nor ally the difference is no more than 5cwt per acre, but this year it was nearer 15cwt. The experts were as baffled as we were.

Of the varieties Longbow did best and was the only wheat to go over 70cwt/acre. Norman and Avalon fell back fr om 1981ís very high yields and Fenman was disappointing. Poor Avocet did so badly here and elsewhere that NSDO decided to drop it completely before it was even launched. Next year we shall be growing two new varieties: Galahad is a feed wheat from the PBI, as is the other variety which is so new it doesnít even have a name yet. It is known as 1335/2 and may well be called Moulin eventually. The PBI hope that it will replace Avalon as a milling wheat with a high yield.

Barley, however, gave us th e best results ever. The high point was the performance of Otter which had been given up for dead by the seed trade the previous autumn. We were unable to find any merchant who wanted an acreage and so grew 200 acres for seed as a speculation. In the event the variety recovered from last yearís debacle and turned in its best performance yet on this farm. To make matters even better, the malting premium was exceptionally high and the seed premium was equally attractive. Otterís possible replacement, T ipper, gave us a few nasty moments in the autumn by reacting violently to a pre-emergent application of Tolkan. Throughout the year it appeared to be very sensitive to all manner of things like the climate and certain chemicals, but at the end of the day the yield was good and we were not disappointed/. Igri was, as usual, reliable with some fields doing more than 60cwt per acre. Sonja also did well and so it is a pity that we shall not be growing the variety next year. We will, however, be planting two new winter barleys; Panda, a very high-yielding feeder bred in France by Desprez, and Halcyon, which NSDO hopes will replace Otter.

One interesting point was that a threatened epidemic of Barley Yellow Mosaic Virus (BYMV) in Otter did not affect the yield at all. In the early spring it had been very visible and we were worried since there is nothing a farmer can do to control this disease. It may be that the weather conditions allowed the crop to escape unscathed.

HERBAGE SEED (200 acr es)

Yields of clean seed at around 10cwt per acre were good without being amazing but, unlike last year, the price will be high. Thus overall results will be well above average. They would have been better if about 10% of the acreage had not been contaminated with other varieties and thus could not go for seed.. Next year, in addition to Frances, we shall be growing a new late perennial ryegrass called Contender which is bred in England by Nickersons. We were particularly happy with the effect o f a new chemical called Endothal which managed to kill sterile brome and yet leave the ryegrass untouched.

OILSEED RAPE (200 acres)

The yield of 28cwt per acre was good but we were left with the nasty taste in our mouths because the entire acreage was rejected for seed. The reason given was that the presence of cleavers made it impossible to clean the crop, but the fact that we were growing a variety called Lingot which never got onto the NIAB Recommended List may not have been entirely co incidental. Certainly cleavers are simple to remove from rape seed but Lingot was impossible to sell. This year we shall be returning once again to Jet Neuf, but not for seed.

SUGAR BEET (200 acres)

The crop of the year. In decades to come we shall be boring our grandchildren with tales of how much beet we grew back in 1982. At the time of writing it looks as if the yield will work out to 21 tonnes per acre - and maybe more. This is a level which we all previously thought was quite impossi ble on our land. Five years ago we averaged only seven tonnes per acre and thought seriously about giving up the crop altogether. However, perfect growing conditions - especially a warm and moist May - and little disease meant that we probably enjoyed what will probably be the best sugar beet results of a lifetime. From a financial point of view the results were less exciting because of the large amount which will be sold as C sugar at the very low world prices. But we should not complain when we har vest more than we had dreamed possible. Last year we achieved 18.25 tonnes per acre and thought it was exceptional. If the trend continues.......But of course it wonít.

PEAS (100 acres)

We started growing this crop last year and made a complete mess of things. This year we did better with a yield of 28cwt per acre and a sample which did not consist of 23% soil. The complicated Common Market subsidies on the crop will fall a lot, which is no bad thing as it has been possible to collect one subsidy for the seed and another one for food - all from the same crop. However, peas still make sense as a combinable break crop which is drilled in the spring and is good for both the rotation and weed control.

CATTLE  (200 head)

The herd looks, to a casual observer at least, like a pedigree Charolais one. This is good news because the price goes up at market but bad news because the calving difficulties increase (and they were bad enough before). The arrival of a Murray Grey bull instead of an Aberdeen Angus have meant that the heifers do have fewer calving problem than before, and we have finally realised that the less you feed a cow the smaller the calf is likely to be. This winter we hope to save money and calves by spending less on sugar beet pulp. The ammonia-treated ryegrass stalks were a great success and we shall be feeding these, together with barley straw this year.

SHEEP  (400 ewes)

Thank goodness for the EEC lamb subsidies. Without them we would hav e had an unhappy year. The lambing percentage of 1.67 was not bad, but an early attack of staggers was not diagnosed until 14 ewes had died. We then proceeded to wean too early and did not creep-feed the lambs. Thus animals which should have been sold fat in late May did not go off until September. However, the average price was almost £40 per head (over 35% being subsidy at certain times) and thus the flock has shown a profit. As a result sheep are now back in fashion as everyone discovers tha t it is hard to lose money with a lowland flock. It may be easier next year because the price of a shearling ewe has risen form £45 three years ago to £75 this autumn. It was for this reason that we did not increase the numbers this year.

The pedigree Charollais flock of four ewes managed to produce all ram lambs and we hope to sell some next year.

MACHINERY

We must be one of the few farms in the world to operate two types of rotary combine. In addition to the IH 1480 axi al-flow we bought the new Claas 116CS to join the existing two Claas Dominator 96s. This new machine was a great success and its output is at least 30% greater than a 96. However, in common with the IH Axial-Flow, we have found that in what would normally be considered good conditions, the losses of grain over the back are sometimes very bad indeed. This is because overripe straw is too easily and then lands on the sieves which immediately block up, preventing the grain from falling through. Developm ent work from both Claas and IH is needed here.

We replaced four Deutz tractors early in the year and were surprised to find that both Ford and Deutz prices were both substantially higher than those of John Deere. Thus we bought four 4 wheel drive John Deere 3140s which have proved satisfactory, except for a rather alarming tendency for the rear wheels to fall off! Other new machines included the Claas Dominator 116CS, an 8 metre Roger XR pneumatic drill from France, a Moreau AT64 six row self-p ropelled beet harvester and a Sanderson 247 Teleporter.

THE FUTURE

The biggest change next year will be our change from barley to wheat so that the proportions will now be 66% wheat and 33% barley. This is long overdue and it is hard to see why we did not do this years ago. Perhaps it was simple inertia allied to innate conservatism. The old idea that our thin land was good for barley but not for wheat made great sense when all fertility came either from livestock or legumes and disease con trol depended on break crops. Today, however, with fertility coming out of plastic bags and disease control in little bottles of chemical, we are using our soil more as a medium. It is true that the so-called wheat land with its heavy clay will do better than us in a dry year, but you only have to look at a wet autumn to see the other side of this particular coin. The first 21 days of October have us 4.2 inches of rain and during this period we were still able to drill 609 acres of land. Our friends on the heavy land were meanwhile in serious trouble. It makes one wonder whether ìgoodî land is good any more and ìthinî land is so poor.

What effect our abundant harvests will have on prices or on the Common Agricultural Policy remains to be seen, but we are in danger of becoming victims of our own success. It is amazing that this country now exports more grain than it imports, but when you look at the yields at Thriplow over the last ten years it is simple to understand how this has happened. In 1972 we were pleased with spring barley which gave us 35cwt per acre (4.3 tonnes/hectare) and winter wheat doing better than two tonnes per acre(5 tonnes/hectare) was cause for celebration. Today yields such as these would mean financial disaster and, in common with many farms in Europe, we have increased them by at least 70%, and in some cases have doubled them. All of which has meant that while the rest of the British industry has been suffering from the Recession, farmers have been doing very n icely thank you. Arable farmers, it is true, have done better than most. For this we should be grateful.

But the fact remains that today the whole system of agricultural subsidies is completely cockeyed. The original idea of an Intervention Price was sensible; it put a floor in the marker which would (it was hoped) save farmers from going bankrupt if the price fell too far. Intervention was never intended to enrich cereal growers. But today, given half decent yields, we can make good profits se lling into Intervention, and this must be a nonsense. The reason is simply that the Intervention Price is too high. It should be pitched at such a level that that the average cereal farmer (whoever he is) should break even and just cover his costs if he sells into Intervention. The below-average farmer would inevitably lose money and thus would have to stop growing cereals altogether. The surplus would be reduced and the taxpayers might even have something to smile about. The above-average cereal far mer would, it is true, make a bit of money and thus we at Thriplow (always assuming we come into this category) would certainly survive.

But with todayís high Intervention Prices, arable farmers are living in a make-believe world in which taxpayersí money keeps us prosperous while all around the economy continues to decline. The market place is a thing of the past, competition has ceased exist and even the most incompetent or unsuitable cereal farmer can make money. Like all protected species i n the world, we survive on the charity and good nature of others. I am not sure I like being a protected species but, as the Dodo would certainly agree, it has its advantages.
 

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