As I write, I hope we will begin the wheat harvest in the immediate future. After the weekend rain, all thoughts of silage and harvesting were abandoned as we walked sodden fields that would be more normal in the third week in November than the first few days of August.

In the meantime, we got the gluten-free oats finally finished in a rare dry spell last Thursday.

It was cut by our customer’s combine. A brand new machine with a 25ft cut and the best yield monitoring mechanism I ever saw. He transmitted a map of the fields, broken down into tiny areas - about 20sq yards I reckon - with the yield attributed to each square.

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The monitoring turned out to coincide with the final tonnage delivered over the weighbridge, which gave a yield of well over three and a half tonnes. Definitely one of the brighter spots of this harvest so far.

Oilseed rape issue

A less bright spot has been, as I mentioned last week, the oilseed rape. It weighed really disappointingly, but I am having great difficulty in finding out why.

In talking to some, I was told I must accept a lower yield because I sowed a Clearfield variety - in other words, I can control charlock, which can be a real problem in oilseed rape by using the accompanying herbicide Cleranda. But the same type of variety worked well last year.

To start with, I would like access to a plant pathology laboratory where, if there were diseases present, they could be identified.

I have contacted some of the commercial labs, but the capacity is not there in the ones I tried, but having taken a sample, I will keep up the effort to discover what went wrong.

There is a good post mortem service on the livestock side - I am not sure why it should be so difficult with a tillage product.

We have continued to buy in some cattle, despite not having taken our second cut of silage.

Another casualty of the weather has, as I mentioned, been our winter barley straw. There are reports that it will be eligible for the Straw Incorporation Scheme, even though the official application date is well past. If we could have confirmation, it would be a real help in a year such as this.