THE rain that has fallen during another predominately dull, damp week has continued to add water to fields, where even the small hoof prints of our resident sheep are beginning to make their mark. We are, however, thankful that we have not experienced the severe weather which has flooded the north.

At the beginning of the week, Ian and our weekend student James mucked out the large barn housing our yearling heifers. Our Angus bull remains in a field with a friend, where he will hopefully be able to stay until he is brought back in with the heifers. The ration fed to the milking cows has been adjusted to provide nutrients for maintenance plus a milk yield of 35 litres per day. The two-year-old heifers that calved for the first time this autumn are receiving a ration to provide for maintenance plus 26 litres, as they are only eating about 80 per cent of what the cows are consuming. We are able to feed them differently as they are housed separately, to prevent the heifers being bullied.

Any additional nutrients for yields above those given in the basic ration are fed in the form of a concentrate given at milking time.

During the week Ian noticed one of our recently born calves was looking unwell, so called our vet. The calf was found to have a hernia, which is a protrusion of abdominal contents through an opening in the body wall. The most common being the navel hernia, which many animals can live with, but in the case of our calf the hernia was becoming strangulated so an operation was necessary to replace the gut contents and close the body wall. The calf is making a good recovery.

Richard and I recently attended Swindon NFU AGM, where we were given a presentation about the use of drones in agriculture by Philip Briscoe and Dr Alistair Cunningham from Razatec, based in Harwell.

For centuries farming has involved legwork, walking down rows or patches checking for weeds, bugs, dry soil and signs of distress plant by plant. Modern machinery, soil testing, computers and ground-based sensors have made crop monitoring more efficient, but things can still go unnoticed. Drones can detect things at a scale the eye cannot. They are the latest transformation in precision agriculture. Drones could save farmers money, also help the environment, as they will allow more targeted fertiliser applications and better use of water and labour.

Data is obtained from bodies like NASA, which can be used to analyse water, soil and land use as well as for the creation of crop field monitoring (web based) , producing a "risk map" for soil status, crop irrigation and yield. Drones can be used to produce visual images, giving different views to the ones we see. They can use multi-spectral (infra-red and ultra violet) imagery to detect biophysical characteristics, which can give us the health status of individual plants. Soil moisture can also be analysed using a thermal detection process. The use of drones is on course to become established as a major innovation in farming.

Another visit was to The Flying Monk Brewery, Hullavington, which was set up by four local men who played rugby together . Their first brew, called Elmers, a medium coloured ale, was launched in March 2014, named after the 11th-century monk who broke both legs trying to glide from Malmesbury Abbey with man-made wings. A second beer, Habit, a little stronger with a maltier taste than Elmers, was launched this summer. The 20-barrel brewery now has 50 businesses within a 50-mile radius which have agreed to take their beer. Next week I will tell you about some of the ingredients grown on farms which are used in the brewing industry.