Meteorological summer came to an end and as of September 1st autumn is upon us, writes Huw Besent of NFU Montgomeryshire.

In the Dyfi Valley it has been a good summer with some rain and spells of dry, warm weather. The three months of June, July and August gave us hardly seven inches of rain compared to last year’s 27 inches.

The road works for the new Dyfi crossing are proceeding with traffic chaos and little sign of actual bridge building.

Thousands of tons of stone have been laid across the flood plain to the depth of one metre on what were once beautiful meadows where farmers gathered silage for winter fodder.

With all the dry weather this summer, along with others, I cannot understand why piles have not been put in for the actual bridge.

Rumour has it that this could be the result of rising costs of materials somewhere along the line. We all hope Welsh Government is able to progress the project without further cost or delay.

More worryingly is the question of the environmental impact on the farmland and houses upriver of these works should the Dyfi flood.

The width of the flood plain has been vastly reduced by the banks of stone, at least a metre high across most of it from the Eco Park area towards the Millennium bridge, creating a potential bottleneck. Any floodwater will be very restricted on its journey downstream. The Llanwrin road may be greatly affected, and as with the lorry incident this week, more commuters into Machynlleth or Aberystwyth could have a detour around Cross Foxes and Dinas Mawddwy.

In my view this multi-million-pound scheme does not seem to have been well thought out and will not reduce traffic chaos in the area around Machynlleth.

On our farm, the new year is starting with dairy heifers and cows calving. To date, cows inseminated with sexed semen are calving to plan, and their poled Holstein heifer calves are looking good. Third cut silage went without a hitch and the new silage pit is full. An off-lying piece of ground upriver near the MWT reserve yielded over 100 round bales of haylage which will be fed to heifers in the winter.

As the fields are nice and dry, hedge brushing has started, and it will be a treat not to make any mess doing this important job. The brambles have certainly had a good year growing out through the fences and need to be cut back so that the cows don’t get their teats scratched, but unfortunately lots of the bumper crop of blackberries will be chopped up. Is this a sign of the winter to follow?