We had just finished the oilseed rape after a particularly difficult harvest. The crop returned a respectable 1.9t/acre, at a slightly higher moisture of 10.5% than the desirable 9%. But in the circumstances, I was glad to have got that yield.

Just as we were finishing the oilseed rape, the gluten-free oats combine pulled into the field. The gluten-free oats is a specialised product and is handled with kid gloves. The customer does all the harvesting and transport and even though we had strimmed all along the field margins we still thought it better to leave a few feet around the field uncut in case of any contamination – we did the same around the ESB poles. At the end of the day, the oats did pretty well exactly 4t/acre, though I haven’t got the moisture and bushels yet.

It was then we said we’d have a look and see how far the wheat was from being ripe. Even in the extraordinarily fine and dry summer of 1984, we never cut wheat before 20 August, but last Friday 11 August, it was clear the first crop was ripe. As it was for seed, we checked with the specialised intake point to make sure it was ready. Our contractor cleaned out the combine manually and then with a compressor, dumped the first half tank into a trailer for feed and began cutting. It was after beans and I expected a good crop. In yield terms it was good at about 4.75t/acre but not outstanding. I have often got a strong 5t at that stage in the rotation. The moisture varied from 18.1% to 20.2% but what really surprised me was the bushel weight, which varied depending on the load from 77.3kph to 82.9kph. I have never achieved these weights with winter wheat before and it is a good indicator, in my view, that the quality of this year’s Irish wheat is extremely high.

We moved on to the commercial feed wheat, a second wheat after oats, then again, with rain forecast for Monday, another cleaning out and air hosing the combine and we went into the final seed crop.

After long, punishing days, we finished on Sunday evening. My contractor’s new combine never wavered under the pressure but it was with a real sense of relief that as the well-forecasted rain appeared on Monday, the 2017 cereal harvest was over. We now have just the beans to do and some straw to bale. The first lot of new weanlings also arrived. A busy week in mid-August.

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Full coverage: harvest 2017