Farmer Focus: Jury’s out on maize after yield drop

The weather has been relatively kind and allowed us to get on with the considerable list of jobs left to do.

Autumn has become our busiest time, and knowing the weather is going to worsen adds some extra pressure.

We’ve managed to empty sand out of the slurry pit, taken fifth-cut silage, chopped the maize, drilled our cover crops and finally drilled the wheat.

See also: Animal Rising activists fined £57k after damage to Arla dairy

About the author

Tom Stable

Tom Stable and family, Ulverston, Cumbria, milk 300 Holsteins twice a day, producing milk for Arla and ice cream for their Cumbrian Cow brand. The 215ha operation, of which half is rented, grows grass, maize, and winter wheat. Cows average 10,800 litres.

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In one sense, the maize was disappointing, at about 40% down in yield on last year. Looking at the cobs, the analysis won’t be as good either.

However, we chopped it without getting stuck and managed to get all the ground turned over into wheat, which six weeks ago, we didn’t think we’d be able to do. 

The yield was a little over 12.5t/acre, which will leave us much tighter for forage than a farm with two acres to the cow (not including youngstock) should be, but a bit of adjustment to feeding early on should see us through.

I haven’t costed the maize yet, but at that yield, it’s going to be expensive, and one more bad year would mean questions.

For now, though, it works well in the system as a whole, spreading the summer workload out, improving the rotation, and feeding well.

Arla’s price rise for October to a base price of about 45p/litre was a welcome surprise.

With seasonality, change in milk quality and price adjustments, our milk price has swung by more than 12p/litre from May to October.

That’s not something that suits our cashflow, and the early summer really hurt.

When we took the decision to house the cows year-round, consistency was one of the main drivers, but we’ve seen nearly the same swings in quality and quantity this summer as before, albeit at a higher level of production than previous years.

Things should settle into a routine. Winter provides some more predictable days and a little more time.

We normally have a building project in the pipeline, but we can’t agree as a partnership which direction to go in, so a period of consolidation is on the cards.

Projects run much smoother when Anna, my dad and I are on the same page, so we will keep talking through things before making any decisions.