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!

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.

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.

Sunsetting on Harvest

Well harvest was finally wrapped up on Sunday 9th September this year in a very dusty crop of wheat.  The final crops we harvested were very poor yielding with low grain weights that disappointed us all.  There were plenty of ears there but very little grain within and what grain was there didn't fill very well.  I think it was a mixture of lots of different causes this year from the lack of sunlight through the final growing part of the year (June-July); also the very high levels of disease that have plagued the crops though a high rainfall year.  Looking back we were finding septoria in the crop coming through the winter, (which was fairly mid), so there was plenty of innoculum within the crop and then even with a robust fungicide strategy control was poor, with the prolonged wet period.

I guess there were a few high lights to harvest and what it has demonstrated to me is the need to spread the risks around by having different soil types and a proper rotation which allows spring and winter cropping.  The spring barley crops have done well and so far all has been accepted by Molson Coors and the germination has remained good, even with a late harvest.  The oilseed rape has yielded very well considering the year which is encouraging.  I also think that we shouldn't take this year in isolation from a cultivations, cropping or crop protection angle.  I know climate change will through a few curve balls for us to deal with in the future but wouldn't a nice easy harvest make a pleasant change?

Harvest Progress

Well we're nearly half way through the harvest this year and its been a very catchy time.  We manage to harvest for a day here and half a day there constantly being stopped by heavy showers which is very frustrating!  On the positive side all of the Oilseed rape and Winter Barley has been harvested in good condition.  All of the barley has been shipped, either to the maltings at Burton on Trent or into a seed plant for dressing before being sold out to the farmers to plant later this year.  Winter barley yields have been acceptable considering the year, it was very dry through the start of the season then constantly wet from May onwards, when sunshine was needed.  As a result the grains were quite small and light, which lost some yield but the germination was fine and the crop came in dry.  The oilseed rape crop was variable but I think we'll end up just above our average yield although I don't know what the oil levels are like within the seed which has an impact on the value of the crop.  The pods did seem fairly small this year which was disappointing but again not unsurprising considering the lack of summer this year!

So it is now on wards with the wheat harvest.  Early indications are a low grain weight but not a disaster and high proteins as a result.  It's too early to say any thing about the grain yield but fingers crossed we can all have a 10 day spell of good weather to gather the crop in the best conditions with low harvesting and drying costs.

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

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!

Weather to Harvest? That IS The Question

Well, I am a bit late in updating our harvest progress on the blog this year.  We started cutting winter barley on the 12th July on some very light, ex sand and gravel land, according to Tim who drives the combine it was the earliest he can remember starting harvest.  The yield held up well considering the very dry spring that we had.  In the poorest areas of the field the straw was only at 30cm tall!  In a normal year it could be at least 80cm.  The good news is that the people we are growing it for like the sample, it has passed their germination and admixture standards and they are happy to take it away for seed.  It will be cleaned, processed and sold to other farmers as Volume, a winter feed variety.  After the start on barley we had a few days off and then moved into some winter oilseed rape.  The first variety to be harvested was Excalibur and I am staggered with the yield we have been achieving. 

The combine has had the yield monitor calibrated with a weighed load, over a local weighbridge, and I am very pleased, actually gobsmacked with the results!  Some of the best fields seem to be averaging about 5T/Ha.  There will obviously be some losses over the cleaner and then through the drier but considering the year and lack of rainfall it is a pleasing start to harvest.
The current problem we are facing is finding crops that are ready to combine.  All of the crops have been dessicated i.e. sprayed off to kill the stems and the leaves.   There is a very precise timing for this and it usually means that harvest can begin in about 18 days after spraying.  I think the cooler weather (prior to now) has meant that the glyphoste has been slow to work on the crops.  The weather is lovely here at the moment and so there is pressure to be cutting something, we still have a lot of crops ahead of us and you never know when the rain willl return.

After the grain has been separated, from the straw, leaves, pods and stems in the combine the MOG, (Material Other than Grain) is chopped up at the back of the combine.  This organic matter is then spread over the width of the header (9m) before being incorporated.

Indoor Catchup

Well with all of the wet weather it has meant that I have been able to catch up with a few jobs in the office. First on the list was to try and download some video taken during the harvest (still 1/3rd to go) Next I thought I would have a go at my soil protection review, to fill in the new mapping pages. Then I remembered that the maps that I have, through the RLR (Rural Land Registry) are incorrect. I did send details of the corrections with my SP5 form in May but as yet there have been no new maps issued. Oh well there's no point in doing the review on incorrect maps only then to have to redo them on the correct maps, assuming they will ever be corrected and agreed! With the rain beating down on the office window and the forecast not looking particularly special this could be a long week of finding indoor jobs to do. Back to coding invoices I guess!

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!

All in a Day's Work

Yesterday the team had a really good day combining winter wheat (Oakley) on Manor Farm, Conderton. The moisture started off at about 17% but soon dropped in the summer sunshine and stiff breeze. Tim kept Gordon and Tod busy on the trailers all day carting the grain back to Graham in the grainstore. By the end of the day nearly 400tonnes had been harvested and put into the bulk shed.

The autotrac was working well, here munching off a 9m part of the field to inch perfect accuracy.

The straw was sold off the field and the baler was hot on the heels of the combine all afternoon and by the following day many of the bales had been carted back to the farm.