Farmer Focus: No YEN Award this year after OSR yields plummet
Mark Stubbs © Phil Weedon Like a number of farmers, this year is one for me to forget about and move on from.
I’ve gone from being one of the top oilseed rape growers in the country last year, to being one of the worst this harvest.
I lost 60% of the planted crop to cabbage stem flea beetle and the remaining 40% only averaged a yield of 2.5t/ha. This is far from my usual average of 5t/ha, with yields usually reaching as high as 6t/ha.
See also: Harvest 24: ‘It’s been a scarily tough season’
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As for my wheat this year, it has yielded anything from 8t/ha with very small seeds due to lack of sunshine. This is not my normal bold seed, yielding 10t/ha-16t/ha in a normal year.
My saving grace is probably my spring barley, which has yielded over 10t/ha with a nice sample and is of a good quality, which will make the malting quality grade.
As harvest is drawing to a close, I have still got some unfit wheat and spring barley remaining to cut, as well as 40ha of linseed, which looks well. Let’s just hope it will yield as well as it looks.
I must congratulate a fellow Lincolnshire farmer, Happy Days Farming managed by Mark Popplewell, who has achieved a record 11.4t/ha for a crop of spring oats this year.
This would be a great opportunity for Mark to enter the Yield Enhancement Network (YEN) competition, managed by independent crop consultants Adas, to win awards for farming achievements and share knowledge with fellow farmers.
It’s clear this harvest that some farmers are having a better time than others this year.
I’ll be back at the YEN Awards next year though, hopefully, with large wheat yields again.
Unfortunately, I have taken the decision to not grow oilseed rape any more, but replace it with a one-year legume fallow to help my first-year wheat yields.
