As I write this piece, one eye is constantly on the window monitoring the breeze and sunshine – and maybe another attempt at combining oilseed rape in a couple of hours’ time.
One of the things I find most difficult about a wet harvest is the endless hanging around. You’re continually on standby watching the sky, sun and the sickening pop-up showers and longer spells of rain that have bedevilled harvest progress for the past month.
But ripe oilseed rape dries quickly and I’d prefer combining rape in broken weather to wheat. Shedding isn’t much of an issue nowadays with the pod shatter resistant varieties. I wouldn’t sow anything else.
The wheat is also coming in quickly and we could be making a start in the first week of August.
Am I optimistic? Not really. The lodging is always worse when viewed from the combine cab, but what I can see now looks bad enough.
We got our growth regulation wrong (Medax Max) and seemingly the variety Graham will tumble when the weather tests it.
I always find it poignant when a farmer sows his crops in good faith but dies prematurely before they come to harvest. This has recently happened to two tillage farmers who I knew.
Gone, but not forgotten
Neighbouring farmer, Tony Brady, received a grim diagnosis three months ago and died in hospital on the eve of what was to be his final winter barley harvest.
He had fervently hoped to be able to drive their John Deere combine as he always did – even for one last time – but it was not to be. The Grim Reaper had beaten him to it.
Tony was not your average farmer in that his thoughts were often well beyond the farm gate and to the greater good.
He was very public spirited and, back in the day, worked tirelessly fundraising for Bóthar and, I think it’s fair to say, Combines 4 Charity was his idea, which went on to raise huge amounts of money for charity.
I won’t claim to have known Paddy McDonnell well, because I didn’t, but I do know his brother Tom and have a huge amount of respect for these guys.
Paddy was on holiday with his family when he suddenly became very ill. He died a few short days later in hospital. If right was right, Paddy should have had at least another 30 harvests in the Louth fields, but this was not to be.
Tragedies such as these put this wet harvest in context. The health of you and yours, in all its forms – physical and mental – is all that matters, so don’t let this harvest get to you.
However, breakdowns and lodging and all the horrors of a messy harvest are behind Tony Brady and Paddy McDonnell now, as they soar to the eternal sunlit harvest fields.
But I hope when God in his heaven is giving out the combines that he gets it right. That’ll be a John Deere for Tony – he’d drive nothing else – and a New Holland for Paddy.
Down to Earth
The oilseed rape was finished last weekend after long hours and a very late night. The yield is crap, as I anticipated when spraying the crops off.
The crop canopy was poor, with all the pods in a shallow band. So, not a year for rape, with an average yield of 1.65t/ac. It’s not looking like much of a harvest but hey, I’m here and healthy and that’s enough for now.
