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The window before harvest is an opportunity to check and map the black-grass situation to plan for the months ahead. Bayer’s Darren Adkins gives his top tips on what farmers can be doing right now.

I write this on the day the twins have gone back to school. It is school, but not as we knew it, with three hours once-a-week for five weeks and they have had some useful teaching of maths, which is a relief from struggling through online worksheets.

One of Wales’ largest food companies has announced it is in consultation with employees about potential job cuts due a drop in hospitality trade, sparking alarm from industry leaders.

The longest day, summer solstice is behind us. As we move into official summer, it is such a beautiful time of year to be up at silly o’ clock as the sun rises and there is very little noise in the countryside, except the vocal birds singing their dawn chorus. They seem to be even louder this year.

The year 1976 was a notable one. Steve Jobs launched Apple, the first Star Wars came out and I turned one during harvest that August.

More growers will be considering linseed as a break crop this winter, according to research carried out by Arable Farming’s sister publication ²ÝÁñÉçÇø Guardian.

Mure Grant, 20, is a sheep farmer’s son from Thurso, Caithness, and recently competed in Scotland’s young handlers section at the international sheepdog trials.

In these uncertain times, it might be tempting for farmers to put the brakes on investment in sustainability but now is the time to ensure the British agriculture sector is at the centre of a green economic recovery, and the support for farmers is out there, says Lee Reeves, head of agriculture at Lloyds Bank.Ìý

With more than one million people backing food standards by signing the NFU petition to protect them in law, we may yet force the Government’s hand on this issue, says Tim Farron, agriculture spokesman for the Liberal Democrats.

In Scotland, as in the rest of the UK, the Tories are preparing to sacrifice farmers on the Brexit altar by trying to prevent the Scottish Government from maintaining EU standards, says John Finnie, Green MSP for the Highlands and Islands.