Wheat from the chaff

Head of large agribusiness company, Syngenta, talks honestly about GM reality and prospects and it gets reported! That qualifies as a miracle in the current climate where US Agriculture secretary talks nonsense, UK Agriculture minister talks nonsense and most newspapers/media are reporting GM as a solution rather than giving a balanced analysis (click on title).

There are a few exceptions - the BBC science editor on Newsnight reported recently that Europe relaxing GM regulations will not infact help lower animal feedstock costs. In the year to May 08 the fastest rising price of animal feedstock was Argentine GM soya, +100%, which has full approval for import to EU.

Also, the Daily Mail (of all organs) published a more balanced view recently.

etc.

We have been bailing nonGM grass into silage. Good year for silage, not too much rain, dried quickly in bright sunshine and light breeze, bailed and wrapped in a couple of days. 800 bails so far. Barn dance friday so also unwrapping large round straw bails and making small bails (200) as the rats have chewed through the string of all the small bails made last year.

Barley is ok in some fields but well mown by rabbits, deer and geese in others. Preps are getting sprayed, fields are getting topped, animals have been vaccinated (Plaw Hatch chose not to interestingly). Generally going well. Had to worm the spring lambs and ewes saturday as 2 died from a worm picked up from deer. Clean grazing is tough when carrying the amount of animals we are at the moment and raises a question of intensity. More fencing is part of the solution.

A good spring and early summer so far, bit of rain would be nice especially for Stein's recently planted pear trees, they desperately need water.