We are well over half way through the harvest now. The weather has been a bit tricky with localised showers the order of the day. Sometimes we get lucky where the combines are and miss them but sometimes it feels as though they are following us!
The good news is that yields are remarkably good considering the growing season. Although both winter and spring crops went in in good conditions, the lack of sunshine this summer led us to think crops might be a bit light, however the opposite is true with grains well-filled.
The winter barley and wheat are averaging around 11 tonnes per hectare dry weight while spring barley was around 7 tonnes and oilseed rape just over 5 tonnes. The oats are barely started yet but are looking good at around 7 tonnes per hectare.
The demonstrator combine in the photo alongside ours meant we chopped down the first field of oats in record time.
With all crops being 2-3 weeks behind where we are normally it has made for a very long and drawn out harvest, with it looking like it will almost certainly be going into October. It makes life a bit more difficult with the shorter days and cooler temperatures the combing window each day gets smaller. It is not something we are used to but hopefully we will get a bit of an Indian Summer and get the last of the stuff in good order.
The biggest problem we have at the moment is storage but that's quite a nice problem to have. It's certainly keeping the grain dryer man busy!
Sowing is also progressing with all OSR sown and a start made to Wheat and Winter Barley. The emphasis has been taken slightly from the sowing as we still have standing crop to cut but with that coming to an end shortly all attention will be turned to getting next years crops in the ground.
We have everything crossed that the weather holds to allow us to get the remainder of the harvest in and sow the winter crops in good conditions.
Dave and Fin will have to wait for a wet day if they want to catch any of the Rugby World Cup!!