We are urgently developing research requirements with other European laboratories to make sure we understand and the disease (Schmallenberg) better.Steve Heard: Grain drier performs harvest heroics between the deluges
CONTINUING our series, charting the ups and downs of seven farmers around the country, we find out what’s been happening on-farm in Leicestershire.
I’m fed up with talking about the weather, suffice to say we seem to have caught the worst of it! Fortunately, I can console myself with the fact we have grabbed every opportunity so far and progress is not too bad.
OSR crops have given us a fairly average harvest. Oats were better than feared with yields about 12 per cent down on last year, having been weighed and adjusted for drying losses.
Interestingly our best field of Dalguise oats (8.4t/ha) resulted from seemingly the worst frost damaged of them all, perhaps it was the extra N we applied in an effort to ‘save’ the crop.
The cold weather certainly took its toll more on the wheat crops; a lack of tillers is reducing our yields by over a ton per hectare. But with huge bushel weights, I am comforting myself with the fact we got the best from the plants that did survive.
Early cut milling and group 2 wheats have tested with both good protein and hagberg, but every time we resume combining following each heavy rain, the levels are dropping.
As a result we are switching grain stores before they are totally full in an attempt to keep different qualities separate, but ultimately running out of space. To date (Friday, August 27) we have just 140ha (350 acres) of wheat left to cut and tip into a feed wheat heap.
The hero of the harvest this season must be our grain drier, having dried virtually everything we have combined so far, with wheat moistures of 17 per cent at best and the worst being over 25 per cent. Some would call this madness, but with quality wheat premiums on the increase I am happy we can easily justify the extra fuel costs.
Saturated soils mean my goal of establishing all our OSR before the end of August is a pipe dream, with just 157ha (387 acres) of progress so far.
Having just received a further 42mm of precipitation in the last 48 hours and now for the first time with a more promising weather forecast, I’m trying hard to be patient!
