A couple of days this week spent looking at oat crops and meeting new oat growers for Whites was interesting and informative.  The crops looked generally really well. The prize goes to the oats in the picture above which are some 1st cereal Mascani.  They hadn't been hoed, were petty much weed free and looked fantastic.   That said all the crops seen looked well with good plant number and biomass.  They had the typical Mascani trait of some slight purpling to some of the older leaves but nothing to worry about and some warmth over the couple of weeks will see them develop really well.

Weed levels were generally low with some Chickweed, Speedwell and Red Deadnettle, none particularly problematic but  providing some feeding for pollinators early in the season. Of great value to early flying queen bumble bees coming out of hibernation.

Some crops had been grazed by sheep and one accidentally by cattle but across the board the crops looked well, strong and with plenty of plants and all having good potential.

One crop had suffered significant flooding with metre high flood waters passing over the crops.  Despite this the crops looked incredibly well.  The scar on the field (below) was caused by a tree branch or trunk scoring the land.  The discarded debris included  sand over 25 cm deep that had been deposited over large areas of the fields - perhaps 3/4 acre - the oats had grown through apart from in a few small areas.  The resilience of the crop is amazing given the evident ferocity of the floods and damage caused to the river bank and bankside vegetation.  A deeper drilling depth will be used as a strategy going forward and I suspect those fields will always have a winter cover. Without the oats this year I fear half the topsoil would be in the Bristol Channel!

Spring crops were going into great conditions and most people are pretty much drilled up with one farmer we visited having just drilled his spring oats including our trial strips and was finishing the headlands once we left him.

Steven McAllister was updating me about the oat market which remains good.  Whilst it is growing slowly it has barely dropped in recent years which is really encouraging.  They remain very committed to the organic oat market and will take more oats than we have managed to supply so don't fear the oat market will be overdone.  The 2025 harvest contract will be out with you shortly.