We did a quick ring-around last night to gauge harvest progress.  

 

Does this square with the position on your farm? 

If you mean wheat, then yes.

Plenty of combinable peas to get here and beans about 2 weeks away.

North Lincs.

 

Only winter wheat is finnished .We're getting regular rains which keep land too wet and are making ruts straight cutting.Swathing is helping by giving clean land between swaths a chance to air .Yeilds seem good but on very weak straw this year and rape is flat and oats are ,50% over ready/flat and 50% standing green..Very frustrating . Much more dessicating going on this year........Generally i think we're 10days  late but it was a cold summer .

Generally very little done at all as winterwheat is not that popular yet,The next couple of days will be the big push if weather will co-operate..?

Harvest has been a real challenge so far,  as i write the heavans have opened and rain is a pouring again.  what is left to cut, well lots.  From where the combine is parked i can see flat peas,  spring barley and wheat growing out.  In North Wiltshire i should imagine we are only 50% way through.  Many dairy farmers are now propcorning wheat etc.   The crops have had as much bad weather as they can take and are starting to show it now.   Other problems are also flagging up,  with damp starw not been able to be baled fields are not being cleared so rape planting has not started either.  

Very slow in lancashire. did 30 out of 110 acres of wheat yesterday. rain again today. got stuck 2 times on friday once to the axels another time past the axels to the bottom of the trailer floor.lifted out with a 360 while a drainer pulling it forward. Then on saturday we got stuck up to the axels on a combine ON DUALS. drainer out again to pull it out. and digging potatoes well we might as well give up just keep getting stuck and the potatoes are 25-40% rotten

 Oh Dear he we go again gettin stuck and grain coming in wet. wheat at 21%

Got to go dryer needs checking 

 Wheat at 21% what level will you say its to wet to cut

Cut a lot of mine at 21-22 last week...All in the shed dried now

we aint the drying facilities like that though. need to get ours down to at least 16 and thats pushing it. and weather is not looking good for next few days either. only time will tell

Finished on Saturday. Hooray.

But have had to put every single grain of a big yieding harvest through the drier. Boo

After very little wheat being cut in Northants, the last week has seen the real start of the wheat harvest. Though todays rain will hold things up for a day or two more.

There's plenty more still standing in the field around here as we go into September. To those who haven't got it all in yet, I hope it stays standing for you .

same here but we have two slight problems one we have no gas for the drier and secondly we have nowhere to put the dry wheat as the other space in taken up by oats, lots of oats.

Oh and another one we still have oats to dry.  

finished my contract combining of wheat, most under 20%. did at one stage thing i had a punture, until i got out ' ouch, it is so hot out of the cab' and discovered the wet spot into which one wheel had dropped.

luckily reverse out of trouble worked, and it was down hill

boveyfarmer:

ouch, it is so hot out of the cab'

 

not in lancashire the hotest was saturday at about 18 c.

you no nothing about getting stuck last year we had a trailer get stuck to the top of the body. Or when you step up from the platform by the cab on a TX68 on to the ground. no steps easy access. 

 

We finally got a decent break and the landscape changed dramatically over the weekend ...Any combine that could go was moving?.

I combined 220 acres of rape and swathed 300 oats on sat/sun but was only the start of 1400 and was a false start and was cut short by another inch of rain....The big push was on rape as quality is good and yeilds are reasonable and many august contracts are still unfilled so wheat was ignored for a while .....Let's get something of quality in the bin this year.........?

     Following some heavy downpours, including hail ! the spring barley has gone up from 15% moisture last week to over 21% last night when I tried a load after a bit of drouth. Should get a good day today with a strong drying wind. Now 60% through harvest with some spring barley and the wheat still to cut.

Most barley in, most OSR in, just coming to the end of oats, No wheat started yet what so ever on our farm, we have drafted a lexion 570 in to help as well as our 580. Our two driers have just finished oats and one has started drying wheat for neighbours as they have been leading quite a bit in. I take the mositure samples and they have been typically between 15 - 19.

At least we get paid if we dont drill a crop next year. 30% SAS, 30% 2nd wheat, 10% 4th wheat, 30% spring linseed at this rate.

TeslaCoils:

30% spring linseed at this rate

I heard thats a bugger to store and to cut.

cutting wheat at 23% down to 13%, 560 acres oif wheat still to cut, and 67 acres of linseed, normal would have finnshed, thank goodness the sts is on tracks, we wouldn't have cut half of what we have cut, all that is to do now is work the land, the fw is sitting in the yard and will not be moving this year, don't want to end up digging it out like last year with a shovel,

nixey:

cutting wheat at 23% down to 13%

 

you mean 13 through the drier yes??

matty s:

TeslaCoils:

30% spring linseed at this rate

I heard thats a bugger to store and to cut.

Nope. Piece of piss. Sharp knife, roundup, spot of sun (!) and you can fly through it. Stores easily on a flat floor but cant go deep - max about 4ft. Fine as we will be happy at a ton an acre. Seed doesnt shed like rape so it will wait for a while. Biggest pain is getting admix out, and second is dealing with arsey waggon drivers whos door isnt tight shut and having it dribbly out all the way to Kings Lynn.

Easy to plant, low cost. Can drill in May. Much better than forcing wet clay into a poor ploughed/harrowed seedbed for feed wheat.

ahh ryt, i heard its a bit of a git in the header and it blocks easy. I know the storage is a pain, unable to heap it up like wheat as you can climb up wheat and pile that up as high as you want but linseed it like quick sand i heard - fall in and your dead. I know what you mean about wagon drivers, we have muppets in sometimes, but recently we have had some decent ones in but you do get some nutters!! I have to ask what there previous loads have been some of the responses - errr some black stuff mate. And then you get, what am i picking up??

We used to grow up to 300acrs of linseed back in the late 80's /early 90's and was always a bitch to cut...I remember having our two 8050/8070 ...2 contractors JD's and a claas  all wrapped up in the same field ..Everyone had to have a go...??

Flax is treated very differently here ...Reglone...Swath ..pick it up ,no problem.It tends to be a crop that lacks yeild here but prices are the best of any crop so are looking attractive on contract for next year and the recent hype of the straw market is a bonus but generally you can always sell flax straw here..?

With our hard winters there is a massive market for small square bale flax straw to cover septic tanks,waterpipes and soakaways so is all bought up by townies..?

3 years ago i baled 6500 bales of flax and i sold out ...All for winter insulation ...None will buy cereal straw or old hay bales even if they are cheaper they are convinced that flax has a higher insulation value..?

A neighbour of mine has a contract to bale most of the flax straw around this part of Manitoba bluepaint. He told me it goes for making toilet paper.

If it saves a tree it works for me!

[doing pomes now..]

Doesnt block if you take it slow. Cut in the heat of the day - so no fun now. No problems with storage depth as you dont get a lot (ton per ac quite easy to do but hard to push it). Dont put it in silos or bins 'cos grain sampling students wont test it, and its a death trap. A real H&S nightmare as it makes concrete very slippery. Gives the inside of your combine a nice grease before winter.

This wet year is the year to grow on contract as I expect a lot of land wont be fit for much else. Low cost, fairly reliable too if you can take the late harvest.

Bravo...!!!!!

At last FWI has noticed that not all farmers have been so lucky to have had a bumper harvest, in fact some may well not have a harvest atall..In some parts of the country the situation is very serious and I think it is up to FWI and any other organisation (NFU CLA etc) to keep in touch with their member as there are some very depressed and worried individuals out there.......