Weather and machinery causes issues with harvest

This cropping season seems to have been a series of lost battles, but the war is nearly won as I sit here on the 27 October with all but 100 acres of maize left to harvest.

As the rain hammers down I’m starting to think what I should have done better. The big things that seem to of prevented us from pushing on this year are lack of plant maturity, weather and machinery issues. No surprises there, but what can we do better?

I moved maize maturity classes on average from 7-10 this season, but all these gains were wiped out by the lack of sunshine and to some extent my new theory that we apply too much nitrogen. This allows the plants to keep growing and never die off. So next year we need to believe in our manure more. I do think our manure and soils are becoming better every year. Our weather will always be uncertain apart from the fact we are certain it will be unsettled, however it does seem our seasons have now moved and it seems March/April and September are the most reliable months to get stuff done.

The one thing we can influence is our equipment; I have set us up to do most of the harvesting with our own machinery, but this does depend on it all working. Unfortunately we’ve lost three days this year, one on a £80 header shaft and two on forager drive belts. Unbelievably John Deere had no spare ones in the country, and when they sent out for supplies they put them on an overnight carrier that managed to crash the van with them on, which means overnight got extended.

Once we finally got the forager going, it starts raining. On the plus side of all this, yields are up, dry matters are higher and starches are bound to be higher as well.

Here’s to kinder weather.

Livestock Farmer Focus: Neil Baker