Frustration increases as late spring hits sowing

Many crops at least three weeks late due to wet, cold conditions

Growers across Scotland are becoming increasingly frustrated by the stop-start approach to sowing after the delayed spring.

NFU Scotland said farmers across the country were stuttering their way through spring work.

The union’s combinable crops committee chairman Ian Sands, who farms at Townhead, Balbeggie, Perthshire, said he had never started spring sowing so late.

“It is now late enough to know there will be an impact on spring barley yields and farms with heavy clay land will still have a long wait for it to be dry enough. Will they bother trying to sow?” added Mr Sands.

Pete Grewar of Grewar Farming, which has operations in Perthshire, the Black Isle and Easter Ross, said: “I did get all winter crops sown but spring barley is at least two to three weeks late in getting sown in the Black Isle and Easter Ross, but it is drawing to a close. However, spring barley is at least three weeks late in Tayside – with 50% still to go in – and tattie planting is just starting now, the latest start in Tayside for 20 years.”

Kinloss farmer Cameron MacIver of Wester Coltfield said Moray growers had been luckier than some but everything was three weeks behind and there could be problems complying with the three-crop rule under the greening element of the CAP.

Iain Wilson of Tulloch Farms, Laurencekirk, said the weather in the next 10 days would determine whether he was able to stick to his original cropping plan. Mr Wilson, chairman of the Scottish Association of Young Farmers’ Clubs agri-affairs group, added: “Spring sowing only started last week – exactly a week later than the date we finished sowing in 2017.”

Fellow Laurencekirk farmer Andrew Moir, of Thornton Mains, said yields were likely to be down at harvest.

Photograph by Kami Thomson LATE LATE SHOW: Farmers are struggling to get seed sown and potatoes planted due to the delayed spring.