Farmer Focus: Yet to cut a single crop this harvest
Billy Lewis © Richard Stanton I’d love to be beginning this piece by reporting on our harvest and yields. Unfortunately, as I write on 19 August I have nothing to tell, as we’re yet to cut anything.
All of our wheat was October drilled, so I am surprised at how stubborn it’s been to ripen this year.
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Only in the past couple of days has it really become fit to cut. It’s ironic: we spend thousands of pounds throughout the growing season keeping crops green, then there suddenly comes a point when we want the complete opposite and hope for them to die as quickly as possible.
See also: Harvest 24: UK wheat yields down 7%, says AHDB report
Typically, and in true 2024 style, just as we’re ready for the off, the weather has turned. What was actually quite a useful first half of August looks to be quickly becoming a washout.
As I write, rain is pattering against the window beside me. The forecast for the next 10 days is looking rather challenging, to say the least.
With current commodity prices, I’m in no rush to cut wet grain and watch as our profits get burned away in a cloud of kerosene fumes.
For this reason, patience is having to be deployed. My father keeps reminding me that it’s early yet.
Being a mixed farm, straw is also a very valuable commodity to us, so making sure we get it baled up dry adds to the tribulation.
If it turns out to be a late harvest, a big concern is getting catch crops established. Keeping living roots in the ground between one crop coming off and the next getting drilled is a vital part of a low-input direct-drilling system.
If a catch crop is planted by the end of August, it does a huge amount of good for the soil, but once you start getting later the benefits become negligible.
We have also committed a certain area of land to these crops as part of the Sustainable Farming Incentive, so I’m hoping we can get the wheels turning.
