Much as the last year ended – rain, rain and more rain. From an oilseed rape perspective its neither good nor bad – as long as the crop remain above water, it will be fine. There are some concerns about the amount of growth (with temperatures only rarely dropping to freezing, crops continue to grow) and for people with weak strawed varieties, this could be another bad year for lodging… remember 2012!

However, our thoughts are on the Spring at the moment – there is plenty of land out there to be drilled with something (if it ever dries up enough!) and while potatoes/sugar beet/veg etc etc will all be in the mix, some of this will go into arable production still.

With winter OSR plantings well down (100,000ha or so on 2013) and world demand for vegetable oils ever increasing, there should be a place for Spring oil seed rape in the mix. There have been some good yield reports (see http://www.fwi.co.uk/articles/06/01/2014/142629/spring-outyields-winter-for-oilseed-rape-grower.htm) and at present we have no idea how the new EU policies will pan out in the UK (with winter OSR and spring OSR designated as different crops, they could both fit will in a 3 crop system)

What else are we up to: the LAMMA show is fast approaching, (22 – 23 Jan) and although there are no plots, we do find it a good place of meeting customers old and new – after all there isn’t much else to do at that time of year! It’s good to have some really good new products to talk about in Incentive and TerraLife. January is also a good month for brainstorming – we are looking into new developments, some to fit in with what we have now (new varieties) some to complement our portfolio (such as BioGas mixtures) and some ‘top secret’ ideas – one or two of these may even happen!

In the meantime – the MGB has just gone in for bodywork (rust!) and a respray, (it’s an expensive ‘toy’) and I was interested to see an article from confused.com (http://www.confused.com/car-insurance/articles/the-six-best-mid-life-crisis-cars) about ‘midlife crisis cars’ – puts me in at number 2! I think this was my second crisis – first time round I bought a racing  bike (bicycle) – so what’s next? (I think I’m too old for an affair!)

Have a happy (and prosperous) new year!