Weekend thoughts

Just got back from a weekend away on the Yorkshire coast. On the drive across Friday there were still combines out cutting wheat! And its October in a couple of days. One thing that really struck me was the number of unploughed fields with wheat stubble still poking through. These far outnumbered the ones that had been readied for re-drilling.

I saw a mate whilst I was there who works for one of the big seed houses. He told me twelve months ago that they'd sold 50% more wheat seed than they'd ever sold. This year they aren't so busy, wheat seed sales are "at best, back to normal."

This ties in with a Yorkshire compounder who told me recently that his fertiliser sales for last month were a third of what they were a year ago. With Lithuanian AN around £365/tonne at the moment compared to £140/tonne a year ago, its not hard to see why.

As a side issue, another chum I met up with works for a national firm of estate agents. Her office have completed on just one house in the last four weeks.