These three wheat crops have experienced the same weather this season.

So why do they look different?

I'm not sure this season has given us many answers.

If anything, it's raised more questions.

Farm finances are under huge pressure. After several difficult harvests, the obvious reaction is to start cutting costs. Looking back, it's easy to say some expensive fungicide programmes didn't deliver the return we hoped for.

But hindsight is a wonderful thing.

At flag leaf, most of us were looking at a wet forecast and protecting yield potential. A few weeks later it turned hot and dry, and suddenly the economics looked very different.

That doesn't necessarily mean we should simply spend less next year.

It means we need to understand what actually made a difference.

I've seen one of the highest yielding oilseed rape crops I've ever been involved with, alongside probably the worst spring oat crop I've seen on the same farm.

I've seen maize drilled earlier than many would have been comfortable with into less-than-perfect seedbeds, yet it has coped remarkably well with the summer.

I've seen yellow rust completely change the conversation around wheat varieties. One of my biggest mistakes this year was putting Champion and Typhoon together in the same blend. On paper it looked sensible. In reality, they shared the same weakness.

I've also seen crops with relatively modest fungicide spending and greater attention to crop health and nutrition finish greener than crops with much larger fungicide budgets.

That doesn't prove one farming system is better than another.

But it does make me think.

Stafford Beer once said:

"The purpose of a system is what it does."

This season has shown us what our farming systems actually do when they're put under pressure.

Some fields carried on filling grain.

Some simply stopped.

Some held onto green leaf.

Others senesced weeks earlier than expected.

Some expensive inputs paid.

Some didn't.

The challenge now isn't simply deciding what to cut out next season.

It's understanding why one field coped and another didn't.

That's the conversation I'm interested in having.

Not whether you're regenerative or conventional.

Not whether you spend more or spend less.

But what your farm has revealed this season, and what practical changes might make it more resilient next year.

I certainly don't have all the answers.

But I do think this harvest has given us plenty to learn from.

What has this season revealed about your farm?