RICHARD and I have spent the last week in sunny Devon. We have been farm-sitting for our daughter Adele and her family while they took a well earned holiday in the south of France.

The weather was kind to us with plenty of warm, or should I say hot, sunshine but there were a few days where the clouds brought the temperature down a little.

Together with son-in-law Steve's mother and father, we were responsible for bringing the cows in for milking and returning them to their field afterwards. An important job was checking the dry cows, in-calf heifers and heifer calves daily. Fortunately we did not have any problems.

We also had to look after their dog Bouncer, cat Frostie, tropical fish and ponies JJ and Star.

After the first day we got into the routine but never really coped with the huge numbers of flies, especially horse flies and biting midges. This being so we had to get the ponies in from the field when the flies were at their worst.

Apart from the routine work we were tasked to do during the week, the farrier was booked mid-week and Steve had told his father that the seven acres of winter wheat for fermented wholecrop silage would probably be ready to cut sometime during the week.

Wholecrop cereals, usually wheat are made into silage as an alternative to maize to be fed to milking cows.

The crop is cut at the 'cheesy stage', when you can roll a grain between your thumb and forefinger to squash the grain not releasing any juice but the cheesy white centre is clearly visible.

At this stage the yield is about 12 tons to the acre, at around 45 per cent dry matter. Once the cut crop has settled in the silage clamp winter wheat is usually harvested for wholecrop at the end of July. Spring wheat will follow about two or three weeks later.

Maize and wholecrop have similar starch levels , but maize will have slightly higher energy levels at 12 ME metabolisable energy). Wholecrop wheat is close at 11 ME but will have higher levels of structural fibre.

Steve's agronomist was called early in the week to help us decide when the crop would be fit. When he tested it he thought it would need a few more days of warm sunshine so later in the week the contractors arrived to cut and ensile the crop before it was covered and sealed with a plastic sheet to keep out the air.

Natural lactic acid bacteria play an important role in fermentation so an inoculant of two strains of lactobacilli were added to the crop as if passed through the forage harvester. The addition of extra bacteria improves the aerobic stability and forage digestibility.

On Stowell Farm Kevin's Friesian/Holstein bulls, bought from us as calves last autumn, have been tested for TB.

Testing bulls, even at ten months old is quite a hazardous job so great care must be taken when each animal is restrained in a cattle crush where the skin test can be administered.

There was an anxious wait for three days before the results of the test could be read. Fortunately all the bulls were clear.

Another job Kevin has done during the last week was to desiccate his winter oilseed rape. Desiccation is done shortly before harvest as ripening in the crop can be uneven. The desiccant will reduce the green material, so putting less strain on the harvesting machinery.

Harvesting of winter barley on both Manor and Stowell Farms has just begun but some untimely storms have stopped the combine for the time being.