Shifting Ground

Some agricultural machinery has subtlety and elegance: the sensuous curves of a plough, the complexity and coordination of a hay baler, the delicate, rapier-menace of an old-style, reciprocating grass-mower.

Subtle this machine is not; this is a heavy disc-harrow - the Terminator among farm implements. It chops, it crushes, it flings aside and back again; it brooks no argument. A field that has been cultivated with this needs a pause for breath

As a distant observer of modern farming, the buzz phrase that I have heard more than most is "regenerative agriculture". As I have understood it, this is attempting to farm in a way that treats soil as what it always was: a complex ecosystem comprising not just sand, silt, clay and decomposing plants, but a living, interacting network of micro-organisms, small animals and fungal networks, supported by a semi-permanent physical structure of crevaces, small channels and air pockets

This has been disrupted, degraded and compressed by the physical and chemical practices of farming - particularly in the last 80 years. Regenerative agriculture is an aspiration of those farmers who believe that their most basic asset - the land - is at a crisis point, and that changes in farming practice are needed that recognise the centrality of a fecund soil to long-term survival

As in all things, I think not everyone is convinced, and this is an ongoing debate in the industry. I don't know if it has been asked, but my guess is that the disc harrow leans towards the sceptics. Nevertheless, I thought it cut a hansome presence on the brow of the hill

The line of white on the overgrown, unkempt hedge in the background - clearly visible even in the flat light and the unfocused distance - reminds me that this has been an exceptional year for blackthorn. The profusion of flowers, their longevity and their persistence this late in the year all seem extreme to me. I don't know if there is any message in that - perhaps it just reflects the cool, but calm, conditions that have characterised this spring.

I find it an austere plant - flowering before it has any leaves - white petals on black bark, protected by vicious spines, usually in the cold dark days of February and March. This year, it has aquired softer edges in the orange light of some of the sunlit April evenings. Perhaps even the hard-cases of the rural scene have other sides to their character