Susan Myles hears from a selection of arable farmers across the country to find out how they have been affected by the extreme weather and fluctuating market prices the past few months.
Neil White
Based at Greenknowe Farm, Duns, Berwickshire, Neil currently has sown 80ha of winter wheat, 45ha of oil seed rape and 22ha of winter barley.
Greenknowe has good soils but it has a sandy to clay loam, everything is directly drilled into the ground. Some low-lying ground has a tendency to flood but Neil has been fortunate with the breaks in the weather.
“Everybody is quite down about the pools of water but if you look elsewhere we are lucky. We have virtually got all our harvest done and winter crop sown besides maybe some potatoes that still need lifted.”
Neil sowed his barley in September, all Pearl variety it will go to Simpsons Malt when harvested next year. All his winter wheat is hard wheat such as Champion which will be used for animal feed. He is currently growing the Resort variety of oil seed rape due to it being high erucic allowing it to sell in a more specified market once harvested. Duns saw 150 to 200mm of rain in October.
“We didn’t get the worst in October but getting crops sown in early has its advantages, the stuff that went in early has established well but definitely some of the later crops will be compromised. Looking at the wider picture UK wide there will be a lot more spring crop as a result of this weather.”
Robert Neill
Well known Jedburgh farmer Robert has 400 acres of winter wheat and 150 acres of winter barley sown at Upper Nisbet. The soils are medium to light loam with the elevation being 90 to 500ft. For wheat Robert is growing Bamford variety for seeds, with RGT Stokes and LG Skyscraper varieties for the rest. For Barley he grows from the AHDB recommended list with varieties such as KWS Tardis.
Everything is sown with a plough combination unit due to its versatility in different weather conditions.
“The rain has been a real challenge so it’s good that you can go in any conditions with the plough and combination unit. I can’t say how much rain we’ve had last month but I can say that I am sick of emptying out the rain gauge.”
“Our harvest was a nightmare but now I can safely say everything is in the ground that needs to be but with this weather spring barley will be up and seed will be at a premium.”
Charlie Catto
Charlie is an agronomist and commercial manager for Agrii in Aberdeenshire. He currently looks after 20,000 acres of arable and potato crop from Stonehaven to Peterhead. The ground conditions are sandy loam varying from grade two to grade three with most crops ploughed and sown apart from oil seed rape which is directly drilled.
Charlie has 5000 acres of winter wheat, he used to grow LG Skyscraper but has now opted for the cleaner, higher yielding SY Insitor and KWS Dawsum. For winter barley he has 2000 acres of a mix of KWS Tardis, SY Kingsbarn and LG Caravelle varieties all sown in the 3rd week of September. He also has 2000 acres of oil seed rape that are run on close rotation in Crome, Amarone, LG Auckland and Aurelia varieties.
“This has been the wettest October the north east of Scotland has ever seen, we were seeing 235mm across the East coast for the month. We are not as bad here but could well lose 5 to 10% of crop to water damage and erosion.”
Chris Leslie
Chris is a director of Cloud Farming in East Lothian and currently has a large acreage of arable land where he has sown oil seed rape and winter wheat. He uses double low varieties of oil seed rape for winter crop such as Acacia and Aurelia, and grows them behind a cultivator. Wheat is minimum tillage whilst second wheat is ploughed. Winter wheat tends to be the varieties present on the AHDB recommended list but the hot favourite this year is LG Redwald.
“We are quite excited about Redwald and hope it will have a lot of potential. We like to grow wheat after spring oats as it is really a no brainer.”
East Lothian is more prone to high winds than rain but October recorded 150mm of rainfall compared to 60 to 80mm closer to Edinburgh.
“This has been strictly a season for the establishment, spraying has been a big issue though because the weather has either been too dry or too wet. We try and be conscious of what we are doing for example we don’t use slug pellets because we don’t want the chemicals to be washed into the environment.”
“The biggest frustration at the moment is the low prices for wheat and oil seed rape, we need to prioritise the domestic market, currently malt and barley are the top performers and we need to see just as strong a demand for other major cereals.”
Colin McGregor
Based at Coldstream Mains, Coldstream, Colin manages McGregor Farms’ farmers and contract farmers.
In Coldstream, he has 616ha of oil seed rape with Aurelia and LG Wagner varieties. The biggest varieties are established in a one path cultivator system. He has 235ha of winter barley consisting of LG Caravelle and SY Thunderbolt which are ploughed. Finally, he has 1640ha of seven varieties of winter wheat including LG Skyscraper, LG Redwald, KWS Extase, KWS Dawsum, Champion, SY Insitor, Graham and KWS Zealum all of which are non-aversion tillage and drilled.
Oil seed rape was drilled from August 17th to September 1st, wheat from September 4th to October 1st and barley from September 15th to 27th. Harvest was completed by September 1st.
“We are very grateful compared to those in other parts of the country, we were able to get our harvest finished early enough.”
“We had 45.5mm of rain in September and 132mm in October so we count ourselves as lucky compared to most.”
Donald Ross
Donald is based at Rhynie farm, Tain, Highlands and has sown just under 200 acres of winter wheat consisting of LG Skyscraper and SY Insitor which will go to the distillery at Invergordan when harvested next year. It is two thirds ploughed and a third minimum tillage. Donald also has 40 acres of oil seed rape of the Aurelia variety that was direct drilled halfway through August so has established a well.
“It has been a difficult back end with just under 200mm of rain in October but I got everything I needed to get out of the ground. We did lose 2-3% of our winter wheat from flooding due to it lying at the bottom of our hill. The oil seed rape is looking good though and doesn’t seem to have a lot of flood pressure.”
“This has been as wet an autumn in 15 or 16 years and anything that didn’t have time to establish would be struggling. With the way the markets are going it's going to be a difficult year with all the costs going up budgets will be tight and there doesn’t seem to be a lot of foresight.”
Jim Reid
In St Cyrus, north of Montrose on the Aberdeenshire Angus border you will find Jim’s farm at Milton of Mathers. The ground is medium loam but is currently still saturated from the weather so out of the 75 acres of wheat planned only 50 acres have been partially sown.
“We have had to be patient and stay off the land but a couple more dry days and we will be able to get going again soon, some of the wheat is in but we still have some more to go in after potatoes.”
“October saw 189mm of rain which is low in comparison to say Aberfeldy which saw as much as 320mm.”
Jim used to grow multiple varieties of wheat but this year has chosen to go solely on LG Skyscraper which is traditionally ploughed.
“Currently they appear to be getting on okay, one or two patches on headlands aren’t so good but otherwise I am not too worried.”
Jim also has 70 acres of oil seed rape which has all been established and is coping well after being non-inverted.
Outside of cereals Jim is known for tattie growing and is currently doing a trial with McCain and the James Hutton Institute testing a field that hasn’t grown potatoes in 40 years.
“Tattie growers can get a hard time but we are going out there and holding our hands up to get the proper tests so we can hold the facts and it’s important that we do these trials to improve ground and get answers.”
Mark McCallum
Mark farms on the Black Isle in the Highlands where the ground has been very wet so much that he hasn’t been able to do any winter ploughing for the following spring. His best established winter crop is his oil seed rape which he has 50ha of LG Wagner variety. It was minimum tillage in subsoiler style and drilled. He also has 60ha of feed barley in the Bolton variety.
The wheat is a different story with at least 5-10% not even being sown thanks to the weather and a further 5-10% poorly established.
“In October alone we have seen more than 200mm of rain, winter crops especially wheat will suffer because of this wet.”
Mark currently has 90ha of wheat using mainly LG Skyscraper and a little of SY Insitor. Everything is ploughed except the oil seed rape with Mark working on a barley rotation that is followed by rape then winter wheat.
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