Harvest 09: Sinking in Scotland

Harvest conditions are diabolical at Adrian Ivory’s Strathisla Farms, Meigle, Perthshire, after almost six inches of rain since 1 August.

“It’s as bad as last year,” said Mr Ivory. “Combines aren’t far off sinking in, and trailers can only take half loads of corn, if that, because they’re just sinking into the fields.”

Harvest was only about 65% complete in the area, and Mr Ivory was yet to start combining wheat – well behind a normal year.

He still had about 80ha (200 acres) of spring barley and 114ha (280 acres) of Istabraq and Alchemy wheat to cut.

“All the barley will be feed now – it’s started to sprout and discolour, and has got fusarium.” Oxbridge was looking particularly bad, but the wheat still looked fine, he said. 

“We’ll be cutting barley at 25% just to get it in – and trying to bale after that will be entertaining.”

Of the 227ha (560 acres) of Optic and Toucan spring barley that had been cut, over 1000t was dry and of decent quality.

The Optic averaged 6.2t/ha (2.5t/acre), while the Toucan yielded 6.9t/ha (2.8t/acre).

Cyprus winter barely yielded below average, at 6.9t/ha (2.8t/acre), but was all good quality for pearling.

Crop: Spring barley
Variety: Optic
Yield: 6.2t/ha (2.5t/acre)

Variety: Toucan
Yield: 6.9t/ha (2.8t/acre)

Crop: Winter barley
Variety: Cyprus
Yield: 6.9t/ha (2.8t/acre).

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Duxford winter wheat is an HGCA Recommended List 2009/10 variety with very high UK treated yields and a maximum 9 rating for resistance to lodging with and without PGR. Combined with the highest second wheat yield and a balanced disease resistance profile, Duxford will continue to help UK growers meet the challenge of producing more grain profitably.

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