Lyburn reservoir with just enough water to see us out.
As I sit and write this we are mid August, and the temperature is nudging 30’c, and still no rain, we have missed all the thunderstorms, and only had the odd 1mm of drizzle. We came into the summer with a large stock of round bale silage, and a clamp of maize, fortunately. The bales have now all been eaten by the cows and the clamp is nearly gone, that said the cows have milked very well. So the next stop will be eating into winter rations as the weather forecast is showing absolutely no rain in the next 10days. The forager is booked to start the maize harvest, cobs are going hard, leaves are being cooked by the relentless sun, so this crop needs to be safely in the clamp. This has never happened before, harvesting maize in August. The crop is looking a bit 80%ish, some of it very good in the wetter fields, and some not so good on the sand. The crisis will come next March when we get to the end of the winter, when the farms start to run out of food, and there is nothing to buy in the market place as it has all been eaten.
The vegetable performance has been mixed. Broad beans were cooked by the heat and we lost crop. The courgette crop has been good but totally reliant on our reservoir, that is now being emptied very quickly, and we are now eaking out the water and using it very sparingly, and it will need to last another 4 weeks.
Runner beans don’t like very hot sun and you get flower drop, green beans are happy but they both need water. Sweet corn is coping and cobs are going to be smaller, pumpkin and squash have not had any irrigation water as they are too far away from water supplies. They are going to be disappointing, smaller than normal, and less of them.
The last time we had a year like this was 1976, and it was almost as bad in 1975, two very hot years in a row. I remember 1976 very well, and I think it was dryer, but not sure that we had the 30’c heat that we have had this time.
Inflation figures for July have just been announced and it is 3.8%, driven, we are told by food prices and air fares. I can tell you that the increase in NI and minimum wage is going to cost our business approximately £30k this year, thank you Rachel from Accounts!
The hot weather is certainly doing a lot of damage and will shorten vegetable supplies, particularly in areas that have had their irrigation licences suspended and the ramifications will be ongoing for some time, so look out!
