Spring barley surprises, winter wheat disappoints

Down in the southeast part of Scotland, Neil White from Greenknowe Farm in Berwickshire reported that all spring crops are in despite the unpredictable nature of weather.

“We’ve been quite lucky, it maybe didn’t feel it at times but compared to the southern country we’ve faired quite well,” he said. “We’ve not had quite as much catastrophic weather as they did.”

Neil has 240 hectares and does contract sowing alongside it and fears that given the weather and disappointing yields paired with high grain drying prices many farmers may struggle to cover cost.

“Winter barley suffered with a lack of sunshine; it had potential but wasn’t quite reached. Quite a lot of light grains, OSR suffered with having wet feet and never filled out properly which was probably some of the lowest yields the area has seen,” he said. “We had some okay and some disasters in the early days. When you get into the wheat again it was mixed, but certainly some above average due to soil type or variety.”

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A new demo IDEAL Fendt combine cutting st Strathmore estate

Soaked straw

Given the coming and goings of rain Neil said that the real struggle came when trying to get in the straw and remarked at seeing swathes lying soaked in fields after, yet another shower prevented bailing.

Neil said: “One of the frustrating things this year is we never felt we were cutting because things became ready, it was more a case of if we go now, we might get it baled before the next rain, we were constantly being pushed on by the rain.”

Alongside the inability to successfully bale before the weather turned Neil stated that the increased level of rain also led to an increased need for drying.

“Drying costs are something that has significantly increased this year, the amount and the cost of inputs for that,” he said. “Kerosene not so much but certainly gas, and there has been a lot of drying, there have not been many crops cut that haven’t required at least some sort of drying.” Adding that, “if you have a drier that’s something that’s factored into your costs but if you are having to send it away to a commercial drier then it is a big hit on an already low price.”

Looking ahead Neil has finished up his winter sowing around ten days later than last year, however, his decision to direct drill for the past two years has sped up the process removing the need to wait for passes to be completed.

Neil White direct drilling craft winter barley

Exceeding expectations

Bar some late grown spring wheat, harvest was wrapped up in good time for Ian Sand from Townhead Farm, Balbeggie in Perthshire.

Despite the fluctuating weather conditions, the crops exceeded early expectation remarked Ian, stating: “If you asked me in June then to what I actually harvested I was very surprised, pleasantly surprised, the spring barley did a lot better than what I expected.”

However, not all areas within his 1400 acres were so lucky. He said: “We have a lot in the Carse of Gowrie, heavy clay land, where we lost a lot that had been flooded out and rotted, it was a right off.”

“What did survive in the heavy land was poor, it took a hammering in the winter. The stuff up on the lighter land did better, anything that was on a run, but I did lose significant acreage due to the weather in the winter,” he continued.

Ian informed the SF that the price of malting barley is down significantly from last year.

“We will have a bit more drying costs than in a normal year, with my malt going into East of Scotland and my wheat dried here,” he said. Adding that he was fortunate towards the end of harvest with a spell of warm weather, something he and his neighbours were glad of allowing the OSR to be cut in prime conditions.

With the positive end to the summer weather wise Ian was thankful for the latest spot of rain, stating its benefits for his recently sown winter barley that goes into drier seed beds and requires a good watering to get going.

Occasionally spot subsoiling in his heavier ground, Ian opted for a fuller approach this year given the heavy compaction of the ground as he looked to get his winter crops in the ground.

He said: “We do a bit of ploughing and a bit of direct drilling; at our heavier farms we have done wall-to-wall subsoiling because the ground was so compacted by the amount of water we’ve had.

Overall, it has been a disappointing harvest for Ian, with the weather playing the main villain, touting the conditions as ‘hellish’ within their bubble.

Adding, “for us this year has been quite like last, but the endgame is that our yields are down and when you factor in redrilling it has not been a good harvest for us. Yield wise one of the worst in my lifetime, it has spun on from the very wet winter last year and a late sown spring.

Neil While cutting spring barley in the the Scottish Borders

Skivington success

Marc Skivington of Strathmore Farms became manager just over five months ago, taking on responsibility for over 2000 acres of mixed beef and arable operations based in Angus. Despite being hammered pretty hard through the winter Marc spoke positively about his first harvest at the helm.

“We had a lot of flood crop loss damage that we couldn’t even crop in the spring because it was so wet, so it had a knock-on effect with winter barley,” he said. “If we were going by field areas of winter barley, we had 77ha but there was flooded areas which dropped our yields to just under 7t/ha dry. We could quite easily say that 10ha of that was missing where there wasn’t any crop.”

Marc explained that despite losing a significant acreage of wheat to poorly established crop they still managed an average of 8.86t/ha across Dawsum, Skyskaper and Insitor varieties, yielding at an impressive high of 10.78t/ha at Kilmundie.

“OSR did well this year, with 3.89t/ha in Chrome and Aurelia and we only put in Laureate for spring barley,” he explained.

With a strong demand for straw Marc decided that everything would be sold in the bouts at £50/t, keeping 1500 round bales back for their own use.

“This year was the first time at Strathmore where we baled everything was baled on the farm, from the barley to the oats, formerly a bit of spring barley, winter barley and everything else would have been chopped and incorporated,” he said.

Given the weather seen elsewhere around the country Marc considered his crops coming in needing only a quick turn in the dryer as extremely positive, in order to store it safely.

“Everything is dried on site here with the OSR coming off the harvester at 8-9% moisture, wheat found its magic number of 19-20% and would not budge, winter barley we were getting at 13.5-14%,” he said.

The OSR at Strathmore Farms has just been put into very favourable conditions, so much so they are having to hold it back. “You can hardly see the rows already, and given it’s a little higher up it is seriously competing with the lowland stuff,” said Marc. By August 14 all the OSR was sown, and the six-row winter barley were in by September 28. The conclusion of winter crops only being prevented by tattie harvesting, which upon its end will see the other half of Strathmore’s wheat in the ground.