It has been a summer to remember for the wrong reasons. Soils have been hot, hard and bare for a prolonged stretch, and harvest ran on ground that carried machinery without leaving much of a mark. That is a mixed blessing. Dry soil resists rutting, so the damage is less visible — but heavy axle loads still transmit stress well below the surface, and dry, brittle ground can shear at depth without showing anything on top. The wheelings you cannot see are still there.
So the usual advice — dig before you cultivate — comes with a caveat this year. Assessing structure in bone-dry soil is difficult and misleading; everything looks hard because it is hard. Wait until you have had decent rain and the profile has wetted up, then take your spade to three or four spots per field — headland, tramline, mid-field. Roots going sideways, a flat platey layer or a smeared shiny face all point to compaction worth fixing. Where you find it, target the fix. Where you do not, save yourself the pass.
That matters this year because deep loosening in very dry conditions is hard work. Draught is high, fuel use goes up, wearing metal disappears faster, and you risk hauling up clods you then have to spend another pass breaking down. A subsoiling pass is somewhere in the region of £25–£40/ha in fuel, wear and labour by the time it is all in — doing the whole farm because two fields need it is money straight out the door. Waiting for a bit of moisture usually gives a better job for less diesel.
The bigger risk right now is what happens when the drought breaks. Long-dry soils go water-repellent at the surface, and a bare, baked, capped field cannot take heavy rain in. The first 30mm downpour onto ground like that runs off almost immediately, and it takes topsoil, phosphate and anything recently applied with it. Ironically the driest summer often produces the worst erosion event of the year. That soil is your fertility, bought and paid for, heading into a ditch — and downstream Welsh Water has to strip that sediment and those nutrients back out again before the water is fit to drink, which takes more chemicals and more energy.
The practical answer is cover. Get something growing, or leave the stubble and trash where it is, and resist the temptation to work dry soil down to a fine tilth — fine dry seedbeds cap and blow. Cover crops will need to chase what moisture there is, so drill shallow, drill soon after rain, and go for something that establishes quickly rather than the most complicated mix in the catalogue.
Longer term, this summer is an argument for organic matter. Soils with good structure and organic matter held on far better through the dry spell, took water in when it finally came, and will carry machinery earlier next spring. It is one of the few places where what is good for the balance sheet and what is good for the river are the same thing.
Practical tips box
- Don’t assess structure in bone-dry soil — wait for rain to wet the profile, then dig three or four holes per field.
- Dry harvest doesn’t mean no compaction. The damage this year is at depth, not in visible ruts.
- Hold off deep loosening until there is some moisture — dry ground means high draught, more diesel, more wear and clods you have to work down again.
- Match the pass to the problem: no compaction, no pass.
- Get cover on bare ground before the drought breaks — long-dry soil sheds the first heavy rain rather than taking it in.
- Drill cover crops shallow and soon after rain; keep the mix simple so it establishes fast.
- Avoid working dry soils to a fine tilth — they cap, blow and then run.
- Keep a grass buffer between cultivated land and any ditch or watercourse, and watch wheelings and gateways: usually the first place runoff starts and the cheapest place to fix it.