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.

Day 9, Really Already? GIFS Today

Tuesday morning and I was back at the National Research Council building at the University, this time to meet the head of GIFS (Global Institute of Food Security) Dr Roger Beachy.  The organisation was only started in December 2012 and Roger has been tasked with setting up the organisation and then finding his replacement.  Roger, a former Chief Scientist to the U.S. Department of Agriculture; who was appointed by Barack Obama, has been in post since January this year.   Needless to say I was really privileged to get a meeting with him.  I was only supposed to stay for 30 mins but after an hour we had to stop the conversation.  GIFS has been set up with funding from Potash Corp,. of Saskatchewan Inc, ($35 million) along with $15 million from the Provincial Government of Saskatchewan over 7 years.  The idea is to bring three main streams of agriculture together to fund research and have an overall Ag strategy.  GIFS mandate is to 'Address the increasing global demand for safe, reliable food' The aims will be to help farmers cope with climate change at a time when farmers battle between improving productivity and maximising profit margins, while balancing long term sustainability.
Roger is adamant that times are changing, and food needs to be more nutritious which can be achieved with the help of the breeders.  Plant breeders, farmers, scientists and marketeers working together to develop, grow and then sell better food with less environmental impact has to be the way forward and it's great to have that vision.  It won't be easy to achieve but I have a feeling a lot of good will come from GIFS and I look forward with excitement to see what will be next.  It's just a shame that our government is unable to make those connections and link up the food chain.. Who knows if we produce better engineered, nutritious, food people will pay more for it, reducing our reliance on the CAP reform?

I drove down to Davison after meeting Garth Patterson for lunch, its about 100km south of Saskatoon to meet up with prominent farmer Gerrid Gust.  Gerrid and his family farm about 16,000 acres of wheat, canola, peas, and lentils.  The farm also owns it's own elevator, which they use as a grain store.  The elevator can hold up to 120,000 bushels of wheat and it was great fun to hoist myself up the man lift to the top to see the view of the farm and the surrounding area.  Gerrid's family have been farming here since the first settlements in around 1908.  I have been amazed at the strength and perseverance of the original settlers.  I can't image what they would have been letting themselves in for, arriving after a week and host, then a week on the train, before walking out to find their section of the prairie.  This land was free to settlers but they had to break 10 acres and build a house in the first 3 years.  It must have been hard!

Gerrid grows these crops with about 15" of rain fall which is quite dry although this year the weather has really been helping the crops with lots of rainfall, although temperature have been cool.  Gerrid's crop's grow to maturity and harvest in roughly 100 days, so when its go, it's go!  Here's the view from the top of his elevator looking down the train line with the Case dealership (centre top).  There is also a John Deere dealership across the road, as they always seem to travel in pairs!

Alberta Day 3 - Three Hills with Steve Larocque

Day 3 and we've been very well looked after by Nuffield Scholar Steve Larocque who runs his own company with wife Vanessa called Beyond Agronomy.  Steve lives and works around the town of Three Hills in Alberta.  The town has a population of 2,500 and somewhere 19 churches!  Most of the farms in the area are about 3,000-4,000 acres and have been zero tilled for about 20years.  The soil is loamy, almost sweet smelling and with the great advice Steve is offering to his clients, yields are moving on up.

I was very interested in the planting methods used for zero till so we headed to the local John Deere dealership Evergreen's at Drumheller.  In the yard was a Seed Hawk planter with a seed hopper for fertiliser and seed that could carry 20T.  Bearing in mind nearly all of the fertiliser for the crop is applied at seeding, these rigs were huge.  All pulled by over 500hp of tractor either on duals, triples or tracks, with widths of up to 66'.  Even transport widths were hovering around the 5m mark!  We also looked at the John Deere ConservaPac opener which placed the fertiliser and the seed almost down the same drill row, seeding tine behind fertiliser tine, reducing soil disturbance creating a very even drilling depth and capable of following uneven topography, with short leg length.  Drilling speeds of around 4.5mph are common, so relatively slow compared to our drilling speeds but reduced soil disturbance is key to the system.  

After some lunch we headed out to visit a Hutterite Community at Starlands.  The we were met by 'Farm Boss' Peter Stahl.  It was a very slick operation and Pete was keen to show us around the farm.  The investment was huge with 3 big drilling rigs each worth somewhere near $750,000.  Each of these systems is capable of planting 350 acres in a 24 hour period, and with 14,900 acres (of all crops to plant), seeding can be completed in 14 days.  The infrastructure was impressive too with grain store, hog yards, dairy, beef and chickens.  The community share everything between each other, so all 93 souls get a share of the wealth.  At the communal kitchens we met Pete's wife and daughter who were busy preparing the fresh chicken for super that evening.  It's a shame I couldn't take any pictures but the I will certainly remember Pete for his warm welcome, generosity and openness into the way they live.

We called in to look at some of Pete's crops and the picture above show wheat plants being planted between the rows of Canola stalks.  This is using the guidance on the tractors (RTK) to the fullest and means the new roots and follow the old crop root channels down without all the stubble stalks being ripped up.  It also acts as protection to some degree to the young shoots as they emerge.  Another great day; meeting interesting people, more tomorrow.

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

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!

John Deere's New Livery Spotted at Overbury

John Deere's new tractor livery has been spotted out and about at Overbury this autumn.  Any comments as to the reasoning behind the new design? 

Start of Wheat Harvest

The wheat harvest finally started on the 8th August in very dry and dusty conditions, needless to say that didn't last long. After a great weekend cutting over 220 acres of rape and wheat the damp weather has returned frustrating everyone. Here the last 9m goes into the combine a John Deere S690, equipped with Autotrak, (I can't drive that straight) on Monday morning. Later in the day a heavy shower forced us to stop. Hopefully the forecast will provide a little ray of sunshine or two and we'll be going again soon. The field was Solstice wheat, average moisture was 16.8% and it yielded about 8t/Ha.

Farewell USA

The trip is over :-(

What an experience, the highlights would have to be the assembly lines of the tractors and the harvesters. The precession technology and machining, the testing and evaluations (on each machine) and the way it all came together, each one built to its own specification. We even mastered the John Deere wave, a sort of masonic handshake, very privileged and one that might come in handy should we need to purchase a tractor or combine in the future, extra discount I think!

We left Chicago airport with all of our luggage, the reunion was emotional to say the least! We were all over weight (not just in baggage terms, too many steaks) but BA did not seem to bothered! We were also upgraded to business class with certain privileges, like the lounge area (we left 1hr late) and the extra leg room. Could you tell we had been upgraded? Yes 7 grinning faces all beaming out in the business area.

We even landed and collected a full set of bags, the fog by then wasn't too bad and we departed Heathrow in time to get back home for lunch. I wouldn't want to be there now!

The view is from the John Hancock tower, it was stunning to say the least!



This was the view from Bredon Hill, just by the tower looking south along the ridge. The whole vale was in fog and still is now. It was a stunning view, hills popping out like Islands in the sea, glad to be home.............


You bet!

Tractor Factory

Waterloo on Tuesday saw us arrive meeting up at the Tractor Factory where the 7000, 8000 and 9000 series tractors are built. Each of us has one of these tractors so it was good to see them being built and how mach effort goes in behind the turning of the key.

All the tractors are built to order and come along the production line as chassis, before the transmission and engines, (made at the previous visited factories) are all bolted on. The final tractors roll off after rigourous testing before being transported all over the world. Deere also make engines for marine, construction, irrigators, generators and gas powered engines for school buses and garbage trucks. We have located most of our baggage, one piece is still missing although all the rest is still at Chicago airport. The smart money is on Ben Tallis returning without his bags!

The Home of John Deere

No pictures for the time being but we've had a whistle stop tour of JD Headquarters, and then the Harvester Factory. This was followed by a trip to Waterloo (last night) early bed and then a trip to Engine Works, Transmission Works and then the highlight of the trip at the Tractor Factory. It was as clean as a doctors surgery, clinical, technical, automated and very sophisticated.

Our luggage has also arrived in the US, it's still 200miles away and we hope to pick it up in time to write some new tags and send it back to Heathrow! We do now have a complete new wardrobe, which may or may not be a good thing!

Here's the first picture. It is taken as you can see at the HQ of John Deere. We stopped here briefly for lunch and a look around the demonstration area before visiting the Harvest Works.

This is how it all started, John Deere originated as a manufacturer of plough shares, not tractors. The company purchased a small firm making the 'Water Loo Boy' tractors and the rest is history. Here we all are standing in the Moline gift shop with one of the few remaining 'Waterloo Boy' tractors.

Well the long drive back to Chicago will take most of the day then we have to do battle with BA about the retrieval of our luggage! (Oh and the compensation, after all we're in America now!)

There's something about Mary!

Goodness me, after a heavy night in Jack's bar, (owned by Mary) I've not had a hangover like this one for a long time! After drinking, Cherry bombs, Apple Pies, Godfathers, Slippery Nipples, TVR's, Alabamer Slammers, Red Slammers, Rumplemans and American's, we decided to call it a night in Moline! Here's us on the way out before we knew our luggage was AWOL! Good old British Airways! The air stewardess' keep turning up, saw them 4 times in Chicago.

Today we go to the John Deere combine factory to start the tour, seems like we've been on the beers for a week. At least we're all having fun and getting to know each other and the various drinking haunts over this part of the USA. The heads are banging a bit this morning but yesterday when I woke up I took a walk along Navy Pier in Chicago, here's the view from the hotel window

What a beautiful city, the sky Line, the people, every-one willing to help (and be tipped!) but helpful none the less, our service industry could learn a thing or two. Well must dash the bus is leaving so I'll update next time I'm near a computer!

Here's the view from Navy Pier looking east toward the Hancock Tower, what a view and what a view and what a bracing wind off Lake Michigan, truly brilliant. People were up fishing for Perch off the pier, waiting to the migration of the 'jumbo Perch' into the harbour, I didn't See many over 6" long but that's a fisherman's tale!

The Windy City!

It's 19.00hrs and we left Chicago two and a half hours ago. We arrived as part of a group of farmers looking at the John Deere factories in Moline and Waterloo. We arrived safetly enough in O'Hare airport (Chicago) our luggage however was nowhere to be seen! 7 guys in the same clothes for 48hrs was not a pretty site or smell!

Today should have been present shopping in Chicago instead we were hunting pants, socks, trousers, shirts and toothpaste amoungst other things! We did manage a few beers whilst watching the Chicago Bears play NFL at home against Tampa Bay and we had more beef, Angus and very tender!

This blog comes from Moline, in the heart of John Deere country. The business part of the tour starts tomorrow, right now we are heading of to find the nighlife and some more steaks. I will try and post some pictures soon.