After a hectic week, we have caught up with ourselves. The rain promised for Monday gave a sense of urgency to getting both the silage and the winter wheat out of the way.
We finished the silage on Saturday evening. The bulk of it had got a full 24 hours wilt and it looked to be in good condition as we rolled it in the pit.
We have made no plastic wrap silage. Everything has gone into the pit with the surplus grass this year made into 4x4 bales of hay, unlike last year when we never got a chance to make any hay at all.
The winter wheat is finished. Last week we had to pull out of the field of seed wheat as it was far too high in moisture to be accepted, mainly from too many green grains and uneven ripening.
After a week, it was fine at 19% moisture and a good sound sample. While we haven’t got the final weights yet, I reckon per map acre of the field, it will have done a bit less than 4t/ac.
Not brilliant but the constant wet left us with some wet patches in areas I had never seen waterlogged before.
These produced nothing except weeds so while the final result was not as good as I hoped, it was better than I expected in my more pessimistic moments as the rain continued during the winter and spring.
The feed wheat performed much the same around 4t/ac with some excellent areas but again, the average was reduced with wet spots, one of which we had conventionally drained some years ago but the conventional small tile drains were simply unable to cope with the volume of rain.
And while it drained away in time, there was simply too much water for too long which drowned the emerging plants.
So far, we have done two remedial drainage jobs, one on the headland at the base of the hill when water was becoming trapped.
The other in a large saucer where this year we had oilseed rape badly affected. In both cases, we had reasonable amounts falls into a water course and I am reasonably confident that those two problems should be solved.
The bigger question is do we try and do more in more difficult spots or do we aim for earlier sowing and hope that the winter of 2023/2024 was a one-off?
We may also have to accept that we may run out of weather in the autumn and simply be prepared to leave some land until the land dries out in spring.
After a hectic week, we have caught up with ourselves. The rain promised for Monday gave a sense of urgency to getting both the silage and the winter wheat out of the way.
We finished the silage on Saturday evening. The bulk of it had got a full 24 hours wilt and it looked to be in good condition as we rolled it in the pit.
We have made no plastic wrap silage. Everything has gone into the pit with the surplus grass this year made into 4x4 bales of hay, unlike last year when we never got a chance to make any hay at all.
The winter wheat is finished. Last week we had to pull out of the field of seed wheat as it was far too high in moisture to be accepted, mainly from too many green grains and uneven ripening.
After a week, it was fine at 19% moisture and a good sound sample. While we haven’t got the final weights yet, I reckon per map acre of the field, it will have done a bit less than 4t/ac.
Not brilliant but the constant wet left us with some wet patches in areas I had never seen waterlogged before.
These produced nothing except weeds so while the final result was not as good as I hoped, it was better than I expected in my more pessimistic moments as the rain continued during the winter and spring.
The feed wheat performed much the same around 4t/ac with some excellent areas but again, the average was reduced with wet spots, one of which we had conventionally drained some years ago but the conventional small tile drains were simply unable to cope with the volume of rain.
And while it drained away in time, there was simply too much water for too long which drowned the emerging plants.
So far, we have done two remedial drainage jobs, one on the headland at the base of the hill when water was becoming trapped.
The other in a large saucer where this year we had oilseed rape badly affected. In both cases, we had reasonable amounts falls into a water course and I am reasonably confident that those two problems should be solved.
The bigger question is do we try and do more in more difficult spots or do we aim for earlier sowing and hope that the winter of 2023/2024 was a one-off?
We may also have to accept that we may run out of weather in the autumn and simply be prepared to leave some land until the land dries out in spring.
SHARING OPTIONS: