Weather Extremes

With October rain falling and wind howling from Storm Amy, today feels like a good day to make some comparisons with last year. Weather is always more interesting when it is extreme and our station records rainfall, wind and humidity. Below are two charts which show the rainfall difference year on year with October 2024 – 2025 showing 634.9mm of rain in comparison to the chart below with October 2023 – October 2024 at 1204.1mm – so double the rainfall. Our theoretical average is 690mm per year.

What does this mean for farming? Well for a start – regardless of effort and inputs applied, we merely harvest sunshine and water, converted into crops, grass and meat. So keeping hold of water when it is not raining and allowing it to be soaked into the ground when it is, makes a significant difference when we have these extreme seasons.

In summary – that’s why we make every effort to ensure our soils are looked after, with the key metric being Soil Organic Matter – the more there is, the better the water cycle.

At the end of last month, we spread the 2.5km windrows of compost onto the most needy fields. Those with low organic matter and in need of some muck and magic to kick start soil biology.

Another unexpected surprise last month was a new-born calf – we have named him Jesus. All of our calves are normally born in March to May. His mother was housed in the shed for a few months over winter last year as she was thinner than we would like. By our calculations, there was a Christmas visit from Father Lincoln Red, which no one can recall. Regardless of timing, a live calf, standing and suckling in the morning is still a good surprise.

Stevie Rolf has visited to pregnancy scan the rest of the herd, with bulls having been out over summer with the cows, we want to know which ones are not in calf and which are carrying twins – for extra rations. This year, we are pleased to see 87% of all cows are in calf – we would like this to be higher, but are still on “room for improvement” with fertility of the herd. Breeding our own replacements, we are seeing fertility increase over time, as we breed from the most fertile cows. It’s a slow process with livestock, but great to see we are heading in the right direction.

Pitch-Up! 2025 will launch in November this year again, with our annual call for ideas and businesses to join Balcaskie and make use of the abundant opportunities. This season, the campaign has grown again with a few new farms and estates across the country, and is gaining momentum as more landowners and farmers see the benefit of increasing the energy and diversity on their land.

While Pitch-Up! has been a relatively recent campaign, the principle has been in place for over 12 years at Balcaskie, and after a quick calculation on current businesses located at Balcaskie, it is impressive to see over 40 businesses employing 136 people, not including the estate team itself.