UKCEH’s soil moisture summary for April 2025 reports that “April soil moisture levels were exceptionally low compared with the long-term averages across many COSMOS-UK sites, continuing the drying trend from the previous month.” COSMOS-UK is the UK’s national soil moisture monitoring network of 44 sites using cosmic ray neutron sensor technology. In fact, 11 of the COSMOS-UK sites recorded their lowest April soil moisture on record.
This evidence reiterates the concerns raised by both UKCEH and the Environment Agency earlier this week: what will the driest spring in England since 1961, and the driest start to the year for northern regions in nearly a century, mean for farmers, business and households?
We reached out to a COSMOS-UK site host in one of the worst-affected regions, the East of England, for comment on how the current conditions are affecting their farming operations.
Hugh Mason, independent farm owner hosting the Fincham site, in north-west Norfolk, highlighted how quickly the soil dried out following an extremely wet Autumn and Winter: “Readings in the third week of February showed soil moisture to be extremely wet, historically high for Fincham. By the start of April, it was historically dry and then started setting new levels of dryness through to mid- April.”
Figure: 2025 soil moisture at Fincham, compared to historic maximum and minimum levels.
At Fincham, oilseed rape, rye, winter wheat, sugar barley, sugar beet and maize are grown on a 6-year rotation on chalky loam and calcareous mineral soil. The period from April to June is critical for the oilseed rape, wheat and rye crops. At the moment, the exceptionally low rainfall and unusually high temperatures are having a huge impact: “Lack of moisture stops the movement of nutrition from the soil to plant roots and therefore uptake - if you don’t get fed you go hungry”.
There is no irrigation at Fincham which changed its cropping to have less exposed to weather risk at any one moment. However, other farms in the local area have started irrigating unusually early.
Farmers in drier parts of the UK are having to adapt their farming methods and crop choices in response to the changing climate and impact on soil moisture.
