Farmer Focus: We still have more than 280ha of crop left to cut
© Angus Findlay I have three words to describe Harvest 2024: frustrating, dreich and ongoing. We still have more than 280ha of crop to cut.
Yields have been a mixed bag, but the wheat seems to be saving the day with varieties such as Palladium and Insitor topping the charts.
Dawsum, however, is having a disappointing year, but saying this I have overyeared seed which now needs to be drilled, so we will try it again.
See also: UK facing third-worst cereal harvest in 40 years
About the author
From a young age, I have always enjoyed driving the machinery, be it “old smokey” (JD 6506) pairing up bales back in the day, to now drilling the oilseed rape with the 8RX.
This has been my first season drilling the OSR with our modified Kuhn Performer with disc coulters on the back, and applying solid fertiliser in one pass.
We have been impressed with the results (although I shouldn’t speak too soon as it hasn’t all come through the ground yet). We have also had time to dabble in some cover crops this autumn.
Covers can be a mixed bag in our part of the world and drilling early is key along with slug control – time will tell how these progress.
Winter wheat drilling began on 4 September – early I know for some, but not for us. Our yield penalty in later drilled October wheat compared to early drilled wheat (now) can hit us hard.
Early drilled Graham is now replaced with Palladium. We can still make Grafton perform, so it goes in again.
As they say “best laid plans” sometimes get thrown out the window as we have had to drill where it has been dry enough meaning the variety spreadsheet has got out of kilter slightly, but we will get back on track.
Our younger staff are keeping us on our toes – mainly checking they haven’t changed all the parking lights to pink bulbs on the tractors.
People must think it’s a Christmas tractor run in our local area these days, but at the end of the day its good to have a laugh with everybody on the farm.
