North East Norfolk is famed for its huge skies, sandy beaches and quiet country roads. It’s an area dominated by the broads and farming. I am lucky enough to farm here, on easy working sandy soils. Friends with heavier land curse at our one pass seedbeds and simple root crop establishment. Unfortunately, this agricultural panacea comes unravelled when the weather does not play along. Last year, a dull cloudy summer gave us poor cereal yields and a wet, expensive harvest. That lead into a wet late autumn too, which had an impact on our Spring, which turned out to be cold and wet too. We didn’t drill a single sugar beet in March, but still managed to complete drilling in April.

A portfolio of 6 varieties: Cayman, Badger, Lipizzan, Sy Muse, Aimanta and Pasteur were all drilled with our fabulous Monosem Meca Sugar Beet drill, mostly following one pass with a Lemken Kompactor. These two pieces of kit are less than 3 years old, and they have transformed our sugar beet establishment. Sadly, whilst well sown may be half grown, the other half requires rain, and sandy soils really need 25mm every week.

A dry July and August worked wonders for an efficient cereal harvest, but sugar beet flagged and only those crops that we managed to irrigate have achieved more than the budgeted 75 tonnes per hectare. So as usual, the weather is the key factor in our sugar beet yields this year so far. With the best crops of Cayman and Pasteur still to lift, we are confident of reaching our quota tonnage.

For next year, Stingray, Hayden and Master look like the ones to beat – and the weather of course.