Opinion – 40 days of rain? In every cloud.

The 15th July marks St Swithuns (Swithins?) Day, some of us will remember the verse:

“St Swithin’s day if thou dost rain
For forty days it will remain
St Swithin’s day if thou be fair
For forty days will rain na mair”

Last Sunday morning there was 38mm in the rain gauge.. Whilst there were a couple of decent days this week on Wednesday and Thursday, otherwise it’s been wet. So its understandable that in some quarters of the industry there is seasonal gloom, however…

Yours truly has it on good authority that certain illustrious grain dryer manufacturers and suppliers are trying to discount the old motto “if you’ve not ordered it by Smithfield, you can’t have it by harvest”. Via frantic phone calls, counting stock in the yard and working out if that insurance write off in the shed can have the scorch marks sanded off and repainted in time to become ‘ex demo’.

Likewise soil moisture deficit issues are becoming a thing of the past in some parts of the country, and the shortfall in first cut grass is steadily being made up. So remember if it’s a wet backend, time to get some ploughs out on demo and sell some combi’s and tine drills.  Oh and get some wearing metal in stock.

By St Swithuns reckoning combines should start rolling again by 24th August, which for us part time upland arable men, is a very early harvest indeed.

With that I’m off to find my waders and look the sheep!

PS for the low down on St Swithun try this for size https://www.historic-uk.com/CultureUK/St-Swithuns-Day/