Harvest 2024 started disappointingly. We established 30ha of oilseed rape last autumn, managed to get 5ha through to harvest and ended up with 2.8t/ha.

Thankfully, we didn’t go mad after a five-year break and drill any more than that.

Winter barley followed pretty much straight after the oilseed rape again with a disappointing yield of about 7t/ha. Again thankfully, this was not a big area.

We are now sat patiently waiting for winter wheat harvest, having just tested some Skyfall which came back at 19.8% moisture.

See also: Farmer Focus: Barley yields down but wheat and linseed hopeful

About the author

Keith Challen

Arable Farmer Focus writer

Keith Challen manages 1,200ha of heavy clay soils in the Vale of Belvoir, Leicestershire, for Belvoir Farming Company. Cropping includes wheat, oilseed rape and elderflowers. The farm is also home to the Belvoir Fruit Farms drinks business.

Read more articles by Keith Challen

A total of 140ha of fallow has been worked in readiness for the following crop.

The penetrometer showed compaction from rainfall almost everywhere, so our home-made low-disturbance subsoiler was used across the whole area.

It feels like years of hard work to improve soils has been put back 10 years just from the weather alone.

Finally, we’ve moved the last of the old wheat crop. This will leave us with a couple of days to get the big store cleaned and sprayed.

Late movement suits our labour profile, although every year it seems we push our luck with needing the store for new crop.

Every year Allfarm Installations do a thorough health check and service on our fixed plant drier and grain handling system, on the basis that prevention is better than cure.

Putting this job in the hands of specialists makes perfect sense to me especially, as half the task involves work at 12m above the ground – a height I’m certainly not comfortable working at.

Our new Fendt Rogator self-propelled sprayer arrived just in time for desiccation. The ability to raise the suspension and increase clearance has been hugely beneficial.

This is especially true in the beans, which look fantastic where they weren’t flooded and very mediocre where they were.

Hopefully, using some Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) option NUM3 legume fallow will reduce the bean area in future.

All SFI options drilled so far look fantastic both in field and on a spreadsheet, hopefully allowing the best areas not to be diluted by the poorest.