OPINION: Charlie Flindt’s real harvest report
When it comes to reporting on harvests, too much emphasis is put on yield. There’s so much more to analyse and enjoy apart from the slightly iffy claims of 10t/ha which clog up the arable pages year after year. Here, for instance, are some statistics from the Flindt harvest 2013.
There’s the breakdown count: none. We were standstill-free this year. I called in Luke the Combine Wizard to replace four noisy bearings on my four-year-old combine over a couple of dewy mornings. This dry, dusty season was not the one to take risks with overheating bearings. It may seem overcautious, but consider the number of field fires seen in the distance over the summer: half a dozen. There was just one puncture – on a trailer. Mind you, it was one of those sods that needed four goes to mend it.
Damage report – gateposts utterly demolished by teenage son finally discovering the joys of corncart: one. Doors to the diesel shed wrecked by same teenager not quite aware of where the trailer ends: one. Total corn spilled over the back of the trailer for the same reason: couple of tons – or so it looked from the combine cab. Satisfaction at seeing teenager doing corncart (and occasionally browsing moth-eared in-cab copy of Farmers Weekly): infinite.
Only once did he have to retreat to the shower having started to itch uncontrollably
Number of weeks that teenage daughter spent working in lab at Hampshire Grain: two. Number of loads of mediocre wheat sneakily upgraded by daughter to Grade 1 milling: disappointingly, none. Number of Hampshire Grain lorry drivers in A&E after trying to pull daughter’s leg: mercifully, none.
Number of times youngest boy helped shovel and sweep in the grain store while loading grain lorries early every morning: about 40. Only once did he have to retreat to the shower having started to itch and scratch uncontrollably.
It was a nice concise harvest: a month and a day. We took one fine day off to bury Granny Flindt, although brother-in-law stayed disgracefully sober and went out to cut a few acres late in the day. We had the perfect three damp days to sow 100 acres of oilseed rape beautifully into the fallow heavyland untouched since last autumn.
Harvest is a time for tension and feelings can run high. Grandpa Flindt told me of the importance of biting your tongue through harvest, and sorting things out at leisure after the combine is put away. It makes my one loss of temper and associated childish sweary outburst at next door’s shepherd and his gang even more unforgiveable. Sorry, Gordon.
Number of ruts left by combine: none. Trailer stuck in boggy corners? None. Average drying cost? £2.10/t. Any post-rain clouds of black dust behind the combine? None – all healthily white.
“But what about yields?” you cry. Must I? Oh, all right. Oilseed rape and winter beans (sown in March, mind): 2.5t/ha (1t/acre). The only field of winter barley that survived: 4.9t/ha (2t/acre). Spring barley averaged 6.6t/ha (2.66t/acre) with lashings of straw (yes, I did sell it), and all the winter wheats, sown and resown in a bewildering array of conditions, dates (September-April) and rates, just missed 7.4t/ha (3t/acre) by a whisker. A monument to mediocrity – but compared with what we thought harvest would be back in the cold dark days of April, it’s a good ‘un.
Mix unexpected yields with easy combining, add family farm in full swing, ignore breakages and hissy fits – now, that’s what I call a proper harvest report.
Charlie Flindt is a tenant of the National Trust, farming 380ha at Hinton Ampner, in Hampshire.
See 1200-plus photos from this year’s harvest around the country.