A Rutland contractor says he is happy with his barley harvest, but poor oilseed rape yields mean it won’t feature in next season’s rotation.

R&R Mills Contractors, farming in south Lincolnshire and Rutland in an area around Rutland Water, had cut most of its 450ha of Kingston and Kingsbarn hybrid winter barley by the end of last week.

Yields varied from 6.5t/ha to 10.12t/ha on a variety of soils, from limestone brash to heavy clay.

Matt Houldcroft, farm manager for R&R Mills, says there has been massive variation within fields, with lower yields in areas which sat wet over the winter and spring.

The winter barley running average is 8.64t/ha at moistures of 15% or below.

See also: Harvest 24: Spring barley beats winter wheat to the combine

Matt says: “Harvest is going really well and yields have been better than I thought they would be on some land.”

The barley was drilled, predominantly using a 12m Horsch Avatar, between the start of the third week of September and the first week of October.

Their two Claas Lexion 8900 combines have 12.3m headers and can cut up to 40ha each a day.

The headers match the 12m drill, as a controlled traffic system is operated across all the farms.

The John Deere yield mapping on the combines mean they can record yield changes across the field, which aids the variable-rate approach to seed and fertiliser.

The grain will be sold individually by each customer, and R&R Mills has 15,000t of storage for its clients.

All the winter barley straw has been baled due to its high value this season, and goes to a straw merchant who sells it to livestock farmers.

Oilseed rape

Matt finished harvesting 245ha of Duplo oilseed rape on 24 July, with a highest yield of just over 4t/ha, a lowest of 2.2t/ha and an average of 2.94t/ha.

The oilseed rape “has not performed how we want it to and we won’t grow it next year”, he says.

“There is no point growing a crop that only breaks even, when so much work goes into it.”

As a result, for the first time they are harvesting without knowing next season’s rotation.

In previous seasons half the barley area has gone into oilseed rape and half into winter beans.

All the oilseed rape is companion cropped with buckwheat, vetch and berseem clover, which is drilled simultaneously with the main crop.

If the oilseed rape fails, the companion crop is used as a cover crop and winter beans are drilled straight into it.

Winter beans

This season he has 300ha of winter beans to cut, as 60-70ha of oilseed rape was lost to flea beetle and replanted with winter beans.

However, Matt says he won’t simply plant 450ha of winter beans next year, for rotational as well as financial reasons.

He will put 120ha into the Sustainable Farming Incentive as legume fallow (NUM3).

He also thinks he has found an alternative to oilseed rape, but wouldn’t say more as he still needs to speak to his clients about it.

Cutting will start this week on the 1,500ha of Extase, Dawsum, Palladium and Insitor winter wheat.