Pleasing harvest at Weston Colville

Harvest has gone well at Henry D’Abo Farming, West Wratting Park Estate, Weston Colville, Cambridge, where farm manager Lee Tubby has 40ha of wheat left to cut.
“Yields have been exceptional and it’s been relatively easy bar the two weeks of rain in the middle,” he said. “We’ve run out of drying floor space so I’m being patient and waiting for the last few fields to dry before cutting them.”
The Santiago had been quite late-drilled and was still standing, so should not have come to much harm in the weather, added Mr Tubby.
Relay first wheat had yielded 11.1t/ha, while Crusoe second wheat had been close to that, too.
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“We’re on a Warburton’s contract and protein contents were pretty good at 12.2-12.9% so we should make a good premium.
“Unfortunately, base prices aren’t very good, so we needed that extra 2.5t/ha of yield or we would have only been growing at cost.”
Winter barley yielded well, at 8.9t/ha, with spring barley drilled into poor conditions after sugar beet producing 6.8t/ha. “We’ve got one field of barley left to cut.”
Oilseed rape had matched the farm average, at 3.2t/ha. “We had some that was pushing 4.2t/ha but elsewhere it took a real hammering next to game cover crops.”
Having sold 75% of the wheat forward, Mr Tubby was pretty comfortable with the way harvest had gone. “We’re averaging £131/t at the moment, but that will come down as we’ve still got plenty left to sell.”