[Cessna571]

It’s coming along nicely.
It does seem to be very close together for a root crop though.

[Trent772]

Definitely looks like Pine to me....

[Charliesixtysix]

If it were mine I would be concerned about that weed burden....These cold nights make herbicide timing difficult though.

Beet is normally drilled in 500mm rows with about 150mm spacing.

[seanxair]

The beans on ours have been sprayed 3 times and look great..... as do the docks

[Cessna571]

If it were mine I would be concerned about that weed burden....These cold nights make herbicide timing difficult though.

Beet is normally drilled in 500mm rows with about 150mm spacing.

aha! So the big plants are beet and the little ones are weeds?

Beginning to make sense.

[Charliesixtysix]

Hard to be absolutely sure from the picture above but it looks like weeds present include fat hen, redshank and bindweed, possibly more...

Beet looks like this.

[Flyin'Dutch']

Bloody interesting!

Need to rename this Farmer's corner.

A shame us townies have nothing similarly interesting to bring.

Where we live here is surrounded by big arable farms and you are as likely to park next to a big FO John Deere tractor as a Polo.

Mrs FD likes the big tractors (or the handsome farm hands - not quite worked out what it is)

[FlarePath]

aha! So the big plants are beet and the little ones are weeds?

Beginning to make sense.

How very Father Ted, "The cows are look small Dugal because they are far away"

[Bill McCarthy]

Woke up this morning to a blanket of snow over the oats. No harm done as there was a rapid thaw.
We normally have three trips into the field - plough, sow + fertiliser application, shut the gate then leave it till the combine goes in. I’ve never yet had to spray for weeds.

[Cessna571]

aha! So the big plants are beet and the little ones are weeds?

Beginning to make sense.

How very Father Ted, "The cows are look small Dugal because they are far away"

This is actually true...

I was flying near Luton when my passenger suddenly exclaimed, fast and loud.

“TRAFFIC !!! 11 O’CLOCK JUST ABOVE US”

He did it in such a way that I definitely thought we were at risk of a MAC.

When I looked, there was an easyJet type thing quite a way away.

I was able to calmly say...

“Yeah, that’s a big plane a long way away, rather than a little plane close up”.

[Charliesixtysix]

Bill,
I guess you have not grown sugar beet then, or at least never had to suffer trying to drive the harvester in a weedy beet crop ?

This is some state of the art beet harvesting kit at work in Holland - well on the way towards a seven figure cheque required to buy that pair.

[Bill McCarthy]

There are many crops that won’t grow in the far north. Fodder beet is one of them. The main crops we grow are barley (winter and spring sown), oats (spring sown only), swedes (for cattle and sheep) and of course, spuds (but not on a commercial scale). But one thing we can grow without fear of drought, is grass ! We’ve had visitors from Australia and NZ and they have been astounded by the quality and quantity of it.
One of the world’s leading spud breeders (new varieties) lives along the road .
Oh yes, I buy huge amounts of dried beet shreds to add to oats pre lambing to give them a boost. They also get molasses, watered down a bit - comes in 200 litre barrels.

Today’s job was to do subcutaneous jabs to batch 2 lambs to protect them against 9 differing forms of attack from the ground. By the left, they are hard to catch, even in a little pen, after you’ve separated them temporarily from their mums. They are like coiled bliddy springs and weigh 20 kilos now!

[Paul_Sengupta]

There's an advert over there >>> urging me to become a member of the NFU.

[Trent772]

Panic not..... The Spring lambs will turn into pies soon enough

[Bill McCarthy]

Yep, some will be off in July, but the majority are sold at market to breeders in September.