They say every year is different in farming and that is certainly true this year. We have now received the main on-account payments for the bulk of the 2024 harvest.
There is no point in pretending otherwise but last year’s difficulties with weather delaying harvesting and sowing have over-influenced our decision-making this year in rushing us to harvest.
The most costly mistake was in cutting one of the oilseed rape crops at a moisture content of 16%. I was well aware that 9% is the target so I have been landed with a moisture penalty of €64/t.
There is no point in blaming my customer for my conscious decision to harvest slightly too early. I made a similar mistake with the first load of seed wheat. Apart from that, everything was more or less as expected.
The stand out crop from this harvest was the spring gluten free oats. Sown in the latter days of April, it yielded a remarkable 3.7t/ac - a pity we didn’t have more of it.
There was no messing on my part in worrying whether the crop was ripe or not - my customer simply sent its dedicated combine to me and started cutting.
Last year, at this stage, we had barely sown the oilseed rape. This year it is up and with the winter barley volunteers treated, they are dying back into the ground.
As I mentioned, despite the almost inevitable yield penalty, we have again used a Clearfield variety.
It may be just as well as there is clear evidence of at least some charlock plants emerging vigorously in the middle of the newly sown rape.
The Clearfield varieties allow us to treat the charlock easily but I have no idea how the threshold can be decided in going for a conventional higher-yielding hybrid versus playing it safe with a Clearfield.
An interesting point that emerged at last week’s excellent crops forum was the statement that 44% of winter barley varieties are barley yellow dwarf virus resistant — a huge advance in plant breeding.
On the cattle side, we now have a few pens of cattle in on silage and about 4kgs of concentrate.
Looking at their performance, you would have to say that we are getting some form of compensatory growth.
Over the last few years, I have formed a view that dairy beef steers’ performance on autumn grass is poor despite adequate bulk.
This year we will try and mop up the after grass by day and supplement the most forward in the sheds in the evening.
We will then compare performance with their colleagues on grass only.
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