Forfar farmer combines wheat in December
One Scottish farmer was busy combining the last of his spring wheat crop this week following one of the wettest summers on record.
At the Strathmore Farming Company in Glamis, Forfar, 2012 harvest was finally completed on Tuesday (11 December) when the last three acres of spring wheat were combined.
Farms manager David Soutar described the crop as a “wee bonus” and said it was one of the latest harvests ever at the 2,428ha farming enterprise, which features in Farmers Weekly’s Management Matters series.
“The area cut this week was sown in winter wheat, which was planted last year after potatoes and areas were flooded. It was re-sown with spring wheat in May just to maintain a crop cover, and we intended to cut it for silage,” he said.
“It was too wet for that and it only ripened in the last few weeks – yield was a bonus and we took five tonnes off the 1.2ha.”
Commenting on harvest 2012 in general, he said: “Wheat yields were a pathetic 3.02t/acre (7.4t/ha), which would be more or less a tonne down from where we would average.
“Price is good but we would rather have been able to take advantage of that with at least average yields.”
Winter wheat harvest would normally be finished at the end of September, but it had gone on into October in the past, he added.
“The combine coped well on the ice without the snow tyres. Although frost has been hard and we couldn’t plough or subsoil, where the crop was growing we were able to subsoil and help repair some of the effects of the wet.”
Planned winter wheat acreage had been sown late, and only time would tell as to how it would fare in the winter, he added.
“We abandoned min-till in favour of a deep plough this year as I envisaged problems with already slumped soils after potatoes especially and I am sure this was the right decision,” said Mr Soutar.
“Likewise lots of livestock muck over the years has helped avoid some of the problems of soils in a wet year and the recovery will hopefully be quicker where soils have been damaged.”
