FARMER FOCUS: Kind weather results in good harvest
I am not often in church but this year maybe I should go to harvest thanksgiving as the weather has been kind to us. The grain quality is good and, just to help the pig farmer, the cereal price is low.
Spring barley did very well, averaging 7.5t/ha, with the best field doing 8.3t/ha. Wheat did ok at 9.6t/ha and oats were disappointing at 6.6t/ha. They looked a good crop all summer until the rain came and they went flat making combining difficult and seed size a bit small. I must say thanks to my two near neighbours who cut everything this year without a hitch.
The piglet creep in the farrowing houses had hot water underfloor heating, which is heated by a kerosene burner. That was until this week when it was replaced with a wood pellet burner, which will also heat the farmhouse. It is a 60kw boiler with a 1,500 litre buffer tank.
The equipment arrived last Friday, the fitters on Monday and everything was up and running on the Thursday.
We initially ordered a biomass system in January, but after waiting for many months the company went bust so we had to start again but with the help of a local company we had the system up and running within five weeks.
A 12t feed bin for the pellets and a nice wooden clad building for the boiler. All we need to do now is register the system to allow us to get the RHI, which will help pay for it and give us an income for the next 20 years.
At the end of this month we have our next monitor farm meeting. The main topic is the pros and cons of a partial depopulation to improve growth by getting rid of the minor diseases that have built up over the years. With some more information I will decide when and if we go ahead and do it.
Danny Skinner farms 440 sows selling finished pigs through Scottish Pig Producers. He runs 125ha at home and rents a further 50ha, growing cereals for home mixing
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