Harvest is not long away, and the feeling of excitement is in the air. Crops are a mixed bag generally, after all the poor weather. We have some wheat crops full of potential, but where they were established later and therefore thinner and patchier there has been a lot of Blackgrass emerge this spring. A continual problem that I wont drone on about, we just have to try and manage it. Spring Barley is about half the size of the Spring Oats and have been the poorer cousin all spring, struggling with the variable weather. Winter barley looks well although I fear the lack of sun is affecting grain fill so I am not expecting anything special on that front. Winter beans look really good this year, I have never seen so many flowers and they are beginning to pod up well. Winter Triticale is about 10 days away from being harvest, this is done with a forage harvester and they remove everything which is then sent to an AD plant. This is new to us but allows us to spread our workload and offer an alternative Blackgrass control option. The theory is that most of the Blackgrass seed should be removed at harvest as it wont have fallen off yet. After its harvested we can plant a summer cover crop then follow up in early October with milling wheat.

Due to the wet weather disease in crops is much more of an issue than in recent years. This has meant higher investment in fungicides, however I believe they will pay back. My father always mentions the late Chris Green (agronomy extraordinaire) in this scenario who always used to say farmers spent too much money in dry years and not enough in wet years on disease control.

Harvest prep is ongoing here, as it will be at Camgrain. We will be running health and safety meetings for the team ensuring everyone is up to date and any concerns or ideas addressed properly.



Stay safe and see you on the other side!