Steve Heard – A surprisingly good harvest brings an upbeat mood

Our wheats were all safely in store by August 22 and all our own OSR in the ground by the same time. We now await the winter beans which won’t be ready until after the bank holiday.

After a torrential wet start, the oats and wheat have been swept up during a very welcome sustained dry spell and although the drier has been in operation, the burner temperatures have been kept low.

I have to remain ever the optimist and hope for some sort of rally in crop prices

Steve Heard

Oats have produced superb 58.5 bushel weights and while I haven’t added up all the weigh bridge results yet, the volume in the store looks rewarding. Wheat crops have amazed me - it would be fair to say that I was not overly excited about this year’s harvest prospects, but how wrong I was again.

However, having just finalised the growing costs for last year’s crop, I confirm we have averaged nearly £100/ha (£40/acre) increase in inputs.

Further frustration from my daily watch over the commodities trading does little to encourage me to sell anything at such a slim margin and I have to remain ever the optimist and hope for some sort of rally in all crop prices.

With most of our contract customers ground now cleared we are near to finishing the establishment of 400ha (1,000 acres) of OSR and other cultivations are well underway.

It is a great sight to see both Sumo machines busting the soil at a pace and how quickly the countryside changes colour. With the ground working up so nicely I doubt our plough will make an appearance until the beans need to go back into the ground.

Let’s just hope that when I write again next month, that I am still feeling so upbeat.

Have your say

Please do not complete the following form field for security reasons.

Name

E-mail

Comment

Post as

Anonymously

Display name