Rain stops play near Edinburgh

Rain had stopped play today (16 September) at Sandy Allison’s Turnhouse Farm, Edinburgh, but progress had not been as bad as in many other areas.

“We’ve had a lot to dry, but we’re not nearly as bad as the Borders and Northumberland,” he said.

Even so, he had recorded 236mm of rain in August – about four times the usual monthly average. “Since then we’ve had 57mm and it’s still raining.

“There’s a lot of wheat still to cut roundabout, which is mostly standing, but there’s a lot of head sprouting.”

Mr Allison had 30ha (75 acres) of wheat to finish off, and quality was not good. Yields had been acceptable, but it was costing a fortune to dry.

The highest moisture he had combined at was 32%, with one 400t batch averaging 27%. “But if we hadn’t done that it would still be sitting in the field.”

He reckoned there was no milling quality wheat cut north of North Yorkshire, and harvest was about three weeks behind normal.

“We would normally try to be wrapped up on all the drilling by the end of September. But the whole autumn drilling programme is out of the window, and having to be rewritten almost day by day.”

The first chance Mr Allison had had to drill was on Sunday, when he got 20ha (50 acres) of rape in. “The last time harvest went on this long was 1985.”

Crop: Oilseed rape
Variety: Mendel
Area: 40ha (100 acres)
Yield: 3.7t/ha (1.5t/acre)

Crop: Winter wheat
Variety: Cordiale
Area: 80ha (200 acres)
Yield: average

Varieties: Consort and Alchemy
Area: 243ha (600 acres)
Yield: average

 

See our rapidly growing Harvest Highlights gallery of pictures sent in by users.

Sign up to our Save our Sprays petition.

 Syngenta

Duxford winter wheat is an HGCA Recommended List 2008/09 variety with very high UK treated yields and the top score for resistance to lodging with PGR. Combined with an unbeaten second wheat yield and a balanced disease resistance profile, this new variety from Syngenta Seeds will help UK growers rise to the challenge of producing more grain profitably.

 

See the New Farm Crops website.

 

 

Need a contractor?

Find one now
See more