After the long, intense pounding by rain the soil is now drying out rapidly and is becoming very hard and difficult to work.
Also, with the mild winter we have had no frost to create a tilth to help make a seedbed for spring sown crops. This means that seedbeds are more likely to dry out and, ironically, some rain will be needed to help seeds to germinate.
March brought some well-deserved dry and warm conditions, allowing fieldwork to catch up. Crops have needed their spring dressing of fertilizer and various spray treatments of herbicide and pesticides.
Some of our no-till fields where there is little cover have dried and the surface has become very hard. In other fields where we have a cover of straw from last year’s crop or we have sown a cover crop the soil, and especially the surface, is in much better condition, although more patience is needed for it to dry enough to be able go on without causing damage.
It is quite striking that with no-till moisture loss is far less than cultivated seedbeds and even in the hard dry fields we can mostly manage to place the seed in moisture just under the surface. Also, hopefully because we are not disturbing the soil and bringing new seeds to the surface, we should have less spring germination of weeds.
Trouble is it’s all good theory, but as we know nature has a way of having its say and it doesn’t always work out as it should.