Rodney Down - ‘Wet Country’ harvest is snatch and grab affair

Further to the west, in parts of Devon, the wheat has been late ripening with some farms yet to start. Our harvest has slowly progressed with only land destined for maize remaining, so we are being patient and waiting.

On the upside, yields have been fantastic with Claire, Oakley and Diego ranging between 10-12t/ha (4-4.8t/acre). All these varieties will make up next year’s cropping.

I can see why it’s called a poor man’s maize!

Rodney Down

Stubble turnips are drilled and established. A trial between the traditional Sumo and combi drill and a newly acquired John Deere direct drill shows the direct drill leading at the moment both on cost and speed of crop emergence.

A month of trials it has been in every sense, as we have also tried some wholecrop wheat silage, more due to necessity than choice as we ran out of maize silage.

Having never fed it before I can see why it’s called a poor man’s maize! Having analysed very well, it just doesn’t feed the same. Hopefully our next trial, a newly installed segregation gate, will target the food at the fresher calvers and higher yielders which, as of last Monday, are in at night.

The decision was taken after a recent herd health tested some fresh cows for energy. They were indeed in negative energy balance. Although the buffer was energy dense, we were not feeding enough of it and trying to eat too much grass.

As one harvest nears completing we look to the maize harvest and a recent inspection of some extremely tall maize hasn’t got us too excited. Cobs are long and thin and a good month away from cutting.

They haven’t matured at all in the last month. The shorter maize, which is still a good 2.5-3 metres tall, has much bigger cobs and should make better silage, and interestingly all drilled later!

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