Cambridgeshire farmer Anne-Marie Hamilton writes on weather

Weather plays a vital role in the life of a farmer. (Image: Richard Cranwell)

I am constantly amazed that we can manage to put a man on the moon and yet cannot get an accurate weather forecast for longer than about 15 minutes ahead.

Despite all the technology available today, it is frequently wildly inaccurate, which is extremely frustrating,

Maybe I am getting older and more cynical, but I am sure that things were not so haphazard years ago.

As farmers, we used to rely on the BBC weather forecast to help us decide when to harvest or make hay, and their predictions were usually accurate for about a week ahead.

Mind you, having said that, we had a lovely elderly farming neighbour when we lived in Leicestershire, and he always said that he preferred ITV because they gave you better weather.

He never actually explained this somewhat cryptic comment, and we never really liked to ask. He was a good farmer though, and seemed to harvest his crops in good condition, so maybe there was something in it, after all.

What set me off on this train of thought was that yesterday morning, the weatherman promised us a few dry days so, with the sun shining and a good warm wind blowing, Rob went off with the tractor and mower to cut the first of our hay fields.

The sun continued to shine until later in the afternoon, the hay was turned for the first time and then, disaster.

A massive shower came out of nowhere and soaked the lot! Today, heavy showers were forecast but, thankfully, that seems to have been wrong so far, too, and the hay is beginning to make now and should be fit to bale in the next couple of days – weather permitting!

Hay is not the only thing that is beginning to mature and change colour. In spite of the long, cold, wet spring and early summer, I was fascinated to see that our oil seed rape is ripening fast, and so is the winter barley.

If this continues, an early harvest could well be in order this year; not something that we would have predicted a few months ago because of the awful weather conditions earlier.

That is the fascination of farming. Every year is different, and we have no idea of what to expect from day to day – even with the assistance of weather forecasters!