Exciting start near Blandford

Clive Tory has just begun harvesting spring barley at Lower Almer Farms, Blandford Forum, Dorset, and is excited by what is yet to come.

“We’ve just started the first field of Tipple spring barley and it looks a clean, bright sample,” he said. “There’s 60ha of barley to harvest and it’s reading at 12.5% moisture.”

Although there was a long way to go, the spring barley was looking very good, he added.

“We only drilled it in mid-April to replace losses of winter wheat, but it shot out of the ground and looks as good as anything drilled between February and March.”

Due to the late harvest, Mr Tory hadn’t cut much yet. “Being hit hard with the weather early in the year, we were unable to get onto the ground with the big drills.

“Now the ears are straight down, we don’t want to lose the crop if the weather breaks.”

That said, winter oilseed rape was all finished, and performed well, yielding 4.3t/ha.

And Everest winter linseed, drilled as an alternative to beans to remove the presence of charlock weeds, yielded just over 3t/ha.  

Diego winter wheat was only three to four days away and looked very exciting, he added.

“We will know how the crop’s performed very soon, but it’s definitely looking promising.”

Crop: Winter oilseed rape
Yield: 4.3t/ha

Crop: Winter linseed
Variety: Everest
Yield: 3t/ha