Harvest is now fully under way although in a rather start-stop manner, with the heavy rain spells interspersed with sunshine.

Wheat grain has been dry but the straw has been far from fit, meaning we now have a lot of wet straw that needs constant turning.

Turning is always a lose-lose situation, spending extra money on already expensive straw only to get losses on every pass.

See also: 100% success rate for companion cropped OSR in 12-year rotation

About the author

Charlie Cheyney

Arable Farmer Focus writer Charlie Cheyney farms more than 480ha land in Hampshire in partnership with his father. They run a mixed arable and 450-cow dairy enterprise, growing cereal and forage crops on varying soils, from chalk to heavy clay.

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Early harvest results have been fairly uninspiring for us; it seems the crops didn’t like having wet feet all winter, which was proceeded by a wet spring with high disease pressure and limited sunshine.

Not to mention some quite extreme tramlines that made combining fairly uncomfortable. I’m hoping some of the later crops will perform better.

The start-stop nature has meant we have had some late nights trying to get fields cut before the rain.

It’s always really encouraging to see how the team comes together at busy times such as harvest.

Everyone seems to understand the task at hand and puts in the extra effort.

It is a challenge to juggle the late nights harvesting with the livestock work and it is easy for people to burn out if not well rested.

Sometimes, it seems the wet days are as busy as the dry, with all the catching up that is needed, especially on the cattle side.

We aim to spread the work and to have a well figured-out rota to give people clear rest times so they can make time for family and have a good work-life balance.

Sometimes that little extra push isn’t worth it; for example we try to keep weekend work to a minimum with only essentials such as combining carrying on regardless.

A small thing, such as the traditional harvest tea at five o’clock, I think offers big benefits.

A time when the machines are turned off and everyone can refuel themselves for 20 minutes seems to do a world of good, and when they are spread out across the farm doing different jobs such as bale cart and corn cart, it can really bring the guys together.