Harvest Roundup

Harvest 2018 was a very interesting time with some very strange results, although probably not surprising considering the weather that has been thrown at the crops this year. The weather went from a very late cold spring (snow ploughing at the start of March), through to a warm spell at the end of April and then straight into summer. We had some rain at the end of May and then into a very hot and dry June (3.8mm) and July (36mm). The winter crops didn't fair too badly on the whole and grain quality was fantastic. The milling wheat averaged about 10% down from our rolling average and proteins were very high, and with good hagbergs (stretchyness for flour). We trialled a new monitor, called a Crop Scan in the combine this year which measures the protein levels of the grain as we harvested. This gave us some very valuable real time information of crop quality. It also showed the grain moisture. This was installed by Precision Decisions and supplied by Agri-EPI and is a very interesting piece of farm equipment.

Winter Oilseed rape was down 10% but the winter malting barley actually increased its yield from last year. The disappointment came when we started combining the spring crops. These were typically 30% down on our historic yields, although quality was good. The recent increase in prices due to lower world yields will not make up the financial difference incased by lower yields. On the plus side we didn't need to buy any diesel for drying the grain and all of the farm machinery behaved very well with no real hiccups!

Zerotill Barley

I have to say that I am really pleased with the way the winter barley has emerged this autumn. Drilling started on the top of Bredon Hill on the 22nd September and continues down in the Vale a couple of days later.  This field is down behind Beckford and is following spring barley, which is normal in the rotation.  Oilseed rape will follow this crop.  The barley is destined to be harvested in July 2017 and will hopefully make the grade for Molson Coors Growers group and Carling.  The planting machine (or drill) planted these fields with a target of placing 350 seeds/m2.  We have been using variable rate seeding depending on soil type.  This system uses GPS technology to locate the tractor and change the seed rate depending on the prescription that it has been loaded onto the on board computer. 

With the crop having established so well it will certainly be able to fend off any slugs that might try and eat the leaves.  We did apply one application to the surface after the crop had been planted to protect the seedlings.  Now it's a case of watching and waiting to see what weeds appear through the straw mulch, in an ideal world there won't be any that are too expensive to control.  We will have to wait and see. 

There are so many benefits to the environment in farming this way; the soil is covered and therefore protected from erosion, the straw acts as a mulch reducing weed competition and the residue (previous straw and leaves)breakdown acts as a brilliant source of food for the arm of worms growing under the soil surface.  

Harvest Roundup

Harvest seems a distant memory, as the grain store fan are blowing the cool air through the harvest grain and the Cross Slot drill is wrapping the last few fields of autumn planted winter wheat.    It has not been our biggest harvest ever, although I think we were spoilt last year with some great yielding crops but it was far from a disaster either.  Our oilseed rape and winter barley were the worst performing crops down about 20% from last year and slightly below our longer 5 year average.  The oilseed and barley grains were small which gave us problems of different sorts.  The barley size meant that we had high screenings, that means that too many fell through a sieve resulting in less usable quality.  The majority of the crop was sold and moved at harvest to Molson Coors.  The oilseed rape has lower oils that last year; about 44% rather than 48% which gives us a slightly lower grain price and the seed sizes were very small.  This meant that the losses from the combine, those seeds that carried straight through in the straw were a bit higher than normal although fairly insignificant in terms of yield loss and on the bright side added to the cover mix. 

The peas where slightly up on last year and have some fantastic colour so will make a good price in a difficult market.  The wheat we harvested was very variable with some every good yields, in excess of 10t/ha and also some wheat from the hill that were slightly disappointing yielding about 8t/ha.  All of the quality has been excellent and with very little drying costs due to the lovely warm sunny weather.

Our new MacDon draper header performed really well across all of the crops we harvested.  It was easy to hitch onto the combine and very easy to alter the header angle and draper speed on the move during operation.

Harvest can be a long drawn out season but thankfully this year; with near perfect weather, it was over in time for a bank holiday weekend off for everyone, the last one was in 2003!  Thanks to all the hard work and effort put in by the whole team and also for the patience to those in the village often held up with tractors and trailers rolling through the village.

Magnificent Margins

Early summer is one of my favourite times on the farm when the hard work of the year, on so many levels, starts to pay off.  The ears of wheat and barley, the pods on the oilseed rape are starting to fill up and the countryside springs into life with a fantastic display of colours and different species. There is no doubt that we live in a sculpted and managed environment.  People are quick to forget this point and since the first settlers began turning their back on nomadic life, our landscape has become man made.

We must not loose sight of the fact that we need to create space for wildlife and mother nature in our very groomed landscape.  We need to create space for our insects to breed and in turn become food for birds.  The space can be populated by flowers adding to our enjoyment of our surroundings and we should take time out to appreciate these wonders.

Our field margins, that we cultivated last autumn are a wonderful mix of poppies, cornflowers and are alive with insects.  There are so many skylarks that tripping over them is almost a certainty!  They are nesting the wheat and barley crops in the purposely sprayed out skylark plots as well as the rough grassland periodically grazed by our sheep.  The diversity of the landscape is what makes it so special.  This must all be done in addition to providing safe, healthy and profitable crops that are wanted by our customers.  Growing wheat that ends up in Kellogg's Cereals as part of the origins group really enables a connection between farmers and customers, a connection we are proud to support.

We have also planted specific pollinator mixes around some of the oilseed rape field margins which are delivering huge benefits in terms of food supply for insects.  Mixtures of crimson clover, phacelia, daisy's and other annual flowers have been a great addition to the work we are doing on the farm to improve diversity of beneficial species and create a better habitat for us all to live and work in.

Harvest Update From the Eyes in the Sky

Harvest is progressing well with some spectacular summer weather, which is making harvesting the crops cheaper and easier than for the last few years.  We started harvesting seed crops of winter barley on the 14th July, on the sand and gravel land with good yields considering the warm weather.  I think growing crops that ripen nice and early on that type of land could be the way forward.  Yields have been above our average and the quality on the first few fields has been good.  After cutting the barley we moved onto oilseed rape which was very dry, with moistures down as low as 6%, ideally it needs to be about 7-8% for a small moisture bonus without losing too much weight.

After a few days harvesting the oilseed rape we moved up onto Bredon Hill to start the Cassata winter barley which we grow for Molson Coors as part of the growers group supplying malting barley to be brewed into Carling beer.  While we were combining on the hill Adam, a neighbour who has just bought a drone with a video camera attached, came up to take some footage of the combine harvesting the crop and the results were spectacular.  You can see one of them here Harvest Log 7 It was a great opportunity and the combine undoing in to the trailer was fantastic.  The footage also shows the compaction, caused by the harvest traffic of trailers and tractors, on the headlands which is not great for the following crop.  We even managed to catch the imagination of Simon Mayo's Drive Time radio show when being interviewed about this years harvest on the 23rd July and made it onto his Facebook page

The drone was very simple to fly, so easy Adam actually let me have a go at landing it! The 10-80 hd camera is fixed onto a gimble so the stability of the camera was very impressive and it's all delivered ready to fly and the images are beamed back via wifi to your telephone held on a stand on the controls.  The shot below is from the video and gives you an idea of the different angles and aspects that can be achieved.

We're now on Day 8 of the harvest and we will finish the winter barley tonight before moving back into oilseed rape for a couple more days.  After then we could have a break for a day or two while we wait for the wheat on the light land to ripen.

Harvest Update

A pause in the sunny weather has allowed me a few moments to gather my thoughts and get writing on the blog again.  It seems a long time since the last update, sent to you from Mexico City!  After returning from my Nuffield studies there was an distinct silence around the farm, no harvesting!  I had planned to have a week at home before our usual kick off harvest start date, around the 25th July but this year we didn't actually start in July at all!  That seems like an age ago already!  We started harvesting oilseed rape (1st of August-latest ever) which didn't yield particularly well although I am not surprised after spinning the seeds into the wheat before we actually harvested the crop.  Casting my mind back it was the only way to get any sort of crop established on those fields as they were so wet.

After a stop-start time on the oilseed rape we moved onto the winter barley crop designed for the Shobnall Maltings at Burton-upon-Trent, part of our Molson Coors commitment.  All of the winter barley has been accepted (eventually) and the space in the grain store cleared ready for wheat when we get going.  Yields on the barley were acceptable, again considering how they looked in the winter.  I remember our LEAF (linking Environment and Farming) Demonstration Farm launch in October and the barley hadn't even emerged!

We've also harvested some wheat, the yields of which have been mixed; some doing very well, again off the better land.  Right now we are having a short intermission due to rain early this morning so it's sorting out some maintenance around the machinery and grain store and getting ready for the next warm windy weather so that we can carry on with the next leg of the harvest.  Do keep up to date with my Harvest Logs on YouTube where you will find a daily update of our progress.

Alberta Day 4 - Beyond Agronomy

Our second day out with Steve started with a visit to Al Jones, who's family has been farming in Alberta since 1903.  Al runs about 5,000 acres with his family.  A herd of 200 Herefords (Herfuds) cattle also run on the farm.  We looked at some of Al's crops after a tour of the workshop.  Steve and Al are trialling precision rape seeding with very low seed mortality compared to the usual air seeding.  The photograph above shows the young canola seedlings growing fantastic root structures very quickly.  Al doesn't practise CTF (controlled Traffic Framing) but has been zero till for a long time.  Again what stood out was the lovely soil, very well structured even after a lot of heavy rain.

Al is also trying a field of Faber Beans this year to see how the crop develops and to get a handle on its Agronomy.  The crop was just starting to flower and in need of a herbicide, but weather delays, due to rain are frustrating the operation. (Sound familiar?)  Beans would be a fairly new venture in the area to add further diversity into the rotation.

I put this picture in of a huge tractor, used for seeding to demonstrate the low ground pressure that they are using when travelling on the fields.  These tires would run at 7psi on the front and 8psi on the rears. It helps that the tractor is duelled up but the attention to traffic and soil protection is a credit.  Getting the soil wrongly managed can be a disaster especially on the soils around Alberta.  Here's what we saw when driving to Saskatoon the following day, not a customer of Steve's!

After an agronomists lunch we headed out to visit Spencer Hilton who has land spread over a 100Km  strip end to end.  I bet it's quite a sight at harvest moving men and machines along the highway.  Spencer had a great business, succession and planing are the key.  Weekly family management meetings and regular staff meetings all made for a very well run business.  The staff were empowered that if they weren't happy, for a safety reason, they could shut the operation down, the management would sort it out and they would move on.  With the removal of the Canadian Wheat Board new markets were developing and Spencer was taking full advantage.  They are contracted to grow malting barley for an American brewing company where the risk was shared between the two parties, in the form of an area value rather than a bushel value.

A huge thanks to Steve and Vanessa for putting us up and showing us around the Three Hills area of Alberta, it really was a terrific visit!

Harvest Rolls Around Again!

Yesterday we started combining!  It was 9 days later than last year but a much more traditional start date for us on the winter barley.  It is usually a toss up between barley or rape but this year the barley gets the nod and gets combined first.  We started with the hybrid barley for seed, a variety called Bamboo, grown under contract to Syngenta.  The crop is laid out in the field with a male strip around the boundary to act as a pollen buffer and with 6% inclusion of male in the centre (female) part of the field to actually pollinate the crop.  It is very critical for us to have good weather, dry and windy, during pollination, which occurred at the start of June this year when the weather wasn't too bad, so the seed set and therefore yield will hopefully be OK.  We still have to calibrate the combine yield monitor which can then give us an accurate harvested yield.

Following on from the Bamboo we started on the Cassata malting barley, grown under contract with Molson Coors (then into Carling and Worthington).  The very warm weather has really ripped the crop quickly and the grain has a moisture content of about 12.5%, much less than the 16% moisture, we can move it at.  This is good news for us as we don't have the dry the crop, burning expensive gas oil.  On the down side it makes the crop vulnerable to cracking and splitting when being harvested, so every care is taken not to thrash the straw too hard, damaging the germination of the grain.  If it won't germinate then it can't be used for malting so it has to go as animal feed.  Samples were taken this afternoon and set of for analysis, we should know the results in the morning, so fingers crossed.  If you want to keep up to date with this years harvest do follow on you tube No1FarmerJake

Grain To Glass

On June 26th 8 intrepid novice cyclists are setting off from the Shobnal Maltings (Burton-upon-Trent) in order to raise money for the Molson Coors Growers Group charity, The Prince's Countryside Fund.  Our aim is to raise awareness of the supply chain from farm to maltings to brewery to customer.  Our barley, (as those followers of this blog know) goes to Molon Coors as part of the growers group.  This group, of over 90 farmers, aim to supply 30,000 tonnes of British barley into famous brands such as Carling, where they use 100% British barley for the brewing process.

The group is made up of 4 farmers, (Mark Blakeway, James Cox, Andy Roberts and me), two staff from Molson Coors (Jerry Dyson and Debbie Read), Jon Duffy from Frontier and David Hall from the EFFP 

We are funding the whole operation ourselves so every penny that you are able to give will be donated to the charity.  I have been training fairly hard, managing about 45 miles on my longest ride, about half of the actual daily ride on the longest two days.  The route will take us over 180 miles from start to finish and we will be stopping off along the way collecting, hops and barley to present to the master brewer at Molson's brewery in Alton (Hamphire) sometime on the 28th June.

If you feel you can sponsor us then please use the Virgin Money Giving  link to get to our sponsorship page.

many thanks in advance and we'll keep you posted on twitter using the hashtag #GraintoGlass

Hopefully there will be a cold Carling waiting for us in Alton when we complete the ride!

Molson Coors Growers Group Spring Meeting

On Tuesday we were excellently hosted for our first Molson Coors Growers Group spring agronomy meeting by Richard Tongue at Priory Farm Hazelton up in the Cotswolds.  We met up in the yard and had a brief summary of the evening by James Cox and then it was off to the field to look at some spring barley at about the 3-4 leaf stage. Richard was one of the runners up in last years MCGG internal barley competition so we were interested to learn about any new techniques he was employing.  It is the real beauty of being involved in a group like this, ideas are forthcoming and we can have a really good discussion about the crops and how we grow them.

We talked about cultivations as some of the fields are in overwinter stubble options (like us) and seed rates, seed dressings and fertiliser timings and rates.  Richard has just bought a new drill and was placing nitrogen down the spout with the seed which was interesting and logical.  John Vickery (Agrii Agronomist) was there to talk about herbicides and fungicide strategies for the coming few months, depending on the weather over the coming months.  There was some discussion about BYDV (Barley Yellow Dwarf Virus) and the areas affected after last years warm autumn and how these patches are very similar to Rhizoctonia solani (a soil born fungus).

After we had exhausted the conversations in the field, and it was getting colder, we headed off to the local pub for a pie and a pint which went down very well.  How many beer drinkers know how much effort and dedication goes into this stage of the brewing process?  The nitrogen levels we apply will have a massive effect of the quality of the grain and its suitablility for malting, let alone the effect that the weather has, which is obviously out of our control, perfectly demonstrated this spring!

Cracking Coverage

We should finish planting the spring barley today after a prolonged drilling period with the foggy weather.  The fog has really stopped the ground drying out and meant that we have had to stay off the fields until they are dry enough to travel on with out doing too much damage to the soil structure.  After the drilling we have been following along with a herbicide (weed killer) to reduce the competition from certain weeds.  This year we have been using some new nozzels which are angled.  One faces forwards and the other backwards.  This helps coat the ground more evenly, especially if there is a clod to two, with the herbicide.  This picture was taken up on the hill in a field called Kemerton Larches and it was a field that we direct drilled with our Horsch Sprinter 6 drill and then rolled.  Most of the field has gone in well but there are a couple of patches where it was a bit damper, mainly under the woodland, that the seedbed isn't ideal. 

the crop should be up in about a week or so which will be great to see, as long as we can keep the crows from doing too much damage.  

Drilling on the Tarmac

Last week we had a strange request and that was: "could we bring a tractor up to Overbury School as they are doing a farming topic?"

We after the rain over the weekend we were unable to go drilling so Gordon took the tractor and the drill (it happened to be attached) up to the school playground.  We talked about the crops that we grow, from wheat being milled into flour and then baked, barley malted for beer and maltesers, and oilseed rape pressed to power our vehicles or cook our eggs.

We spent a very interesting half and hour looking at the tractor and drill.  The children commented on the lights, the size of wheels and the cleats for getting up the hills.  They were fascinated with the drill and how the seed actually made it from the hopper to the field, so we started the tractor and planted a few seeds on the tarmac to the cheers and delight of the children.

I have a feeling we might be invited back at some point when we are passing with another item of farm machinery to demonstrate.

A little Help From Big Sista!

Our run of good weather has finally come to an end and so allows me to tell you a little about some exciting new machinery.  We have actually cut something every day since the 20th July which in itself is quite a record for the past few summers.  Where have the weeks of sunshine I seem to remember from my youth gone too or am I looking back through rose tinted glasses?  Those 'combine connoisseur's' among you will notice that this is not our usual combine harvester cutting winter barley on Bredon Hill.  John Deere are in the process of launching a new range of combines, built in Europe for the high output combines on larger farms and they wanted an area of crop to check the machine out and to make sure there were no teething problems.  We happened to be cutting our malting barley for Carling, which was going very slowly with our combine so we jumped at the chance to try the new machine and give her a work out!

The output was amazing and showed how technology moves on very quickly.  Our machine is only 4 years old and was easily out performed in a difficult crop to combine.  The forward speed was 5-6kph instead of ours at 3kph.  The header on the new combine was also bigger at a whopping 35 feet with belts presenting the crop to the combine very uniformally.  There were very few losses and much less than our combine in the straw swath.  These losses are grains that can't be shaken from the straw and so are lost back to field.  These are called volunteers in the following crop that need to be sprayed/cultivated out later on.  The grain tank held a full trailer load about 25%  larger than ours.  Fuel efficiency is roughly about the same as ours for the acreage cut.

This model also came with track's in place of the larger front wheels which will help reduce the transport width (3.5m) of the machine and also reduce the compaction of the heavy machine on the soft soil.  Grip would also be helped climbing up and down our hill.  But what is the cost and will that cost be justified?  More harvest updates can be seen at No1FarmerJake where I am uploading a daily video tracking our harvest, as it happens!

Farmers Toast Carling Western Growers Group

Yesterday I travelled up with James Cox, (2010 Malting Barley grower of the Year) to Burton-on-Trent to the annual meeting of the Carling Western Growers Group (CWGG).   The group of over 70 farmers supplies about 20,000t of malting barley every year to Molson Coors The barley is used to provide malt for Carling Beer and we feature heavily as a group in their 100% British Barley campaign of which we are very proud to be associated. 

One of the benefits to being part of this club is the knowledge that our produce, which we spend hours planning for, growing, harvesting and storing are going to a  known home and one as popular as Carling.  There are other benefits as well; being able to share knowledge about growing the crop more efficiently and therefore reducing the carbon footprint (also through the whole supply chain), preferential harvest treatment and having a direct link with the maltster and discussing, one to one, the intricate points of malting barley.  The session concluded with a forward look at the corporate responsibilities and the contract for the next 3 (or so) years of barley supply.  Everyone left with a positive feel about the group and what it can provide our customer with going forward, and it wasn't caused by the complimentary C2 Beer

Harvest Update

We've had a crazy couple of days, with the weather being as good as it has been (at least in this neck of the woods). The combine has been working hard, with numerous balers in hot pursuit, gobbling up the straw before the next shower appears from the Severn Vally.

Luckily the crops were sprayed off with Glyphosate which meant the straw was fit and ready to bale once the combine had been through the crop. (I dithered again this year about spraying them off but again glad I did!)Many thanks to the teams of balers, lorries and loaders taking the bales off the fields ready for Oilseed Rape drilling in the next couple of weeks.

Group 1 milling wheat safely gathered in tackling the Group 2 Cordiale tomorrow and Friday before the Tipple seed and malting barley. Another good week of sunshine and we will have cracked the back of the cereal harvest leaving the beans, which BTW are ready now!

Beasts in the Barley

Just for the records I also found a whole lot of ladybirds and larvae in the Coors Malting Spring Barley this afternoon. Even though it was raining the larvae were hard at work searching for their supper. On the menu tonight (I think) were grain aphids. There were a few small populations, not enough to worry about spraying them, so the beneficials will be able to control them for the next couple of weeks prior to harvest.

Interestingly the malting barley has not received any type of insecticide at all through the growing season but the wild bird seed mixture has received 3! It just goes to show that correct applications, at the correct timing, of the correct products can control the nasty (damage causing) insects whilst allowing the good ones (beneficials) to thrive.

Coors 'Best Practice' for storage

The malting trade is a very difficult business as we are dealing with a living growing seed. The seeds or grains must therefore be kept in perfect conditions to avoid loosing germination or getting pest infestations. Keeping those two key thoughts in the forefront of our minds was the key message from James, who's farm we visited last night. Drying the grain and then slowing cooling the crop was the best way to avoid any costly rejections at the malthouses in Burton on Trent.

Trying to get the crop dried to a target of 14% moisture and then cooled down to about 10 degrees should see the crop safely into long term storage, from harvest 2010 until the summer of 2011.

Next week a group of growers are heading to Denmark to see what we can learn from the Danish growers and maltsters about getting the right product to the right customer at the right price. I'll keep you posted as to how we get on!

Harvest Update

We've had a fairly good spell of weather for the past 10 days and been able to make good progress, we even managed to harvest some of the spring barley without having dry it. The Solstice wheat is all but in the barn, 14ha's left, at 500ft, that is not fit yet. We should finish the malting barley on the hill by mid afternoon today and then it's on to the Zebedee and Cordiale on the hill for the weekend, weather (as always) permitting. Straw baling has been moving on apace with 3 balers in the fields yesterday (thanks Brian). These will be planted with Catana Oilseed Rape behind the carrier and biodrill very soon. The wind is proving a mixed blessing at the moment: keeping the showers away or whizzing them through very quickly, but it is also hindering the bean desiccation and slug pellet application on the rape already planted, as always in this job there is a comprise to be made at some point or another. Carling have got their featured growers on their web site now, have a look, you might recognise someone on http://www.carling.com

Spring Planting Apace

With the recent dry weather, yes it's been dry for at least 2 weeks, last time that happened was in 2003, or so it seems, the land has been dry enough to travel on. Gordon here > is drilling Tipple Spring Malting Barley on Bredon Hill. This is under contact to Coors, via Frontier Agriculture, to go to Burton-on-Trent to be made into Carling lager next year. The dry weather following the frost has given us lots of frost tilth and the seed bed is nice and fine. We put some nitrogen fertiliser into the seed bed before we cultivated it so that it was worked into the soil to surround the seedlings as they germinate to hopefully get them off to a really good start. Gordon is hoping to finish the field tonight before it rains, tomorrow.

On the 11th April we are having our annual Farm Lambing Day. Tractors and trailers will be leaving Overbury village hall, from 10am until 3pm, to take you up to Park Farm to see the lambing for yourselves. The game keeping dept, of Paul, Greg and Rod will also be there to uncover a few of the myths behind the dark and shady underground world of game keeping, accompanied by the stuffed or frozen usual suspects, friends or foe! Lunch will be available to purchase at the village hall from 12 am until 2pm, tea and coffee will be available all day. There is a small charge of only £5 for adults and children will travel free. It is a really super day out for all of the family, so bring them along, no matter what the weather is doing, and we'll be pleased to show you all about the lambing and sheep production here at Overbury. It got very busy last year between 11 and 1, so if you can try and get there early.

Farm Catch up

After the wet weather of the summer the frosty conditions are what we are all craving, allowing field work to begin in fairly good conditions. Derek has been been ploughing up on the hill in preparation for spring malting barley, grown on contract to Coors brewery in Burton. Derek will move onto the Vale land when and if the lower fields continue to dry up. The frost is great for breaking down the clods of earth forming smaller and smaller lumps which are great for planting spring seeds into, hopefully in January or February. As we didn't plant any Oilseed Rape on the hill this year, it was too wet and then too late, the area of spring barley has increased 5 fold this year. There will also be some winter barley grown around park farm, the first time for over 15 years! Lets hope we an keep it standing for the combine next July!

One of the knock on effects of the wet summer, and we will be feeling these for several years to come, is the fact that we haven't got any stubble turnips of note established to feed the ewes or the lambs this year. We have therefore concocted a ration made of our home grown crops to feed to the lambs indoors instead. The mix consists of woolly wheat (see 6-10-08 blog) oats and beans. The mill mix company are supplying some molasses, to sweeten the mix and make it more palatable and some extra energy in the form of fat.