The second week of January brought six nights of hard frost, down to minus nine on the morning of the 14th. The winter wheat we drilled in late October spent the week white.
People ask whether the frost kills it. Usually it does not. Wheat sown in autumn is built for this, and a cold spell can even do it good.
What happens in the ground
Young wheat plants harden off as the days shorten and the nights cool, and by January they can sit under frost for days without harm. The danger is the thaw: if the ground freezes and lifts, it can pull shallow roots out of the soil.
Frost also does useful work in the soil. Water in the top few inches freezes and expands, breaking up clods that were left after drilling and ploughing. A good frost gives us a finer, crumblier seedbed for the spring barley in March than any machine could.
“A cold January is no bad thing. It is a warm, wet one that worries us.”
We walk the fields after every hard frost and pull up a few plants to check the roots. This year they were firm and white. A few patches on the lightest chalk lifted a little, and we will roll them in March to press the soil back around the roots.
Hard frost over the wheat on Long Furlong, January.
Waiting for spring
There is not much to do on the arable side in January but mend things, plan the spring work and wait. The sprayer goes in for its annual test, the drill gets new coulters, and the field book gets written up.
By March the wheat will be green again and growing, and the first fertiliser will go on as soon as the ground can carry the tractor. Until then we will keep walking, keep checking and keep the kettle on.
The cattle, meanwhile, are snug in the yards, eating hay we made in June and silage from the meadows. Frost makes feeding easier: the tractor can get round without churning up the gateways, and the muck heap stops steaming for a week.
