Month: March 2017

The week began with gale force winds, freezing conditions and snow, and ended up in almost summer like conditions – a typical Scottish spring week really. The maximum temperature recorded on Tuesday was 4.8C, with a ‘feels like’ temperature of -3.5C. Saturday brought a maximum of 16.8C, although a cool breeze meant it only felt like 14.8C. Although there wasn’t a lot of rain during the week it was enough to stop us, and then the wind was so cold the ground dried out very slowly.
Amazingly drilling continued at the start of the week until we were snowed off on Tuesday afternoon. Euan had managed to dodge the showers, and drilled just under 100 acres (40 hectares) in a little over 3 days. We haven’t done any since then due to things having to dry out, and the contractor being busy elsewhere. With a good forecast

for this week, we aren’t too bothered, as when he does come, most fields will be ready.
There was some activity though. We rent out some ground for carrots to Edenwood Farm, and they made a start to prepare the ground. Fertiliser was spread, and then the deep ridger appeared, complete with GPS system.

When the weather did improve at the weekend we were able to get on and roll the fields of spring barley that had been sown. Rolling serves a double purpose, firstly firming up the seedbed, and also pushing down any stones that may be near the surface. Rolling is also a fine job to learn how to drive to a mark, and to be able to judge turning widths etc. Cameron was given the job as his first tractor work, and was getting on fine once he got the hang of it.

The final story of the week was the purchase of a new cultivator. We’ve been needing one for a while, but not really found what we were looking for. We got this one on demonstration from McLaren Tractors, and so far it has done all that we have asked of it, so it is here to stay.

And so we start again. The winter has been very kind to us this year, and we’ve not had a lot of rain. The ground has dried out fast, so we were able to get a start to drilling some spring barley this week.

Of the 3 varieties we are growing this year, Concerto and Laureate are destined for the malting market. Both of these varieties are new to us, though Concerto has been around for a few years now. We’ve avoided Concerto because it skins and splits easily – that is the husk can come away from the grain at harvest time. This can lead to rejected loads, and has been a problem over the past few years. However, maltsters can be a fickle bunch. They decide which varieties they want, and if you want to sell to them, that’s what you have to grow. The agronomic qualities of a variety are usually further down their list of priorities.

Laureate is a new variety that has done well in malting trials over the past couple of years, but hasn’t really been tested commercially. It will be interesting to see how it does, as it shares the same problem as Concerto – that of skinning.
The third variety we are growing is Belgravia. This is being grown for the feed market, and therefore on land that is perhaps not so conducive to producing a good malting sample. Up until last year, Belgravia was a stalwart of the malting market, but it is now out of favour (see above comment about fickle maltsters). It is a fairly bullet proof variety to grow, so we see no reason to stop growing it. We are also hopefully covering our backs a bit, in that although it is currently out of favour, if we have a wet harvest and skinning/splitting is really bad, then they could well accept it. We shall see.
The land down the bottom (north) end of the farm is light and sandy, so we are able to start drilling earlier there. The photos show the drill being loaded with seed (yellow bag), and fertiliser (white bag).

The drill places the fertiliser alongside the seed, so it is readily available for the growing seedling. This gives it a faster start, and leads to a slight increase in yield. It is more costly to drill it this way though. As usual, all our drilling is done by Iain Brown, as he can bring in

the right type of drill for the various soil types on the farm, though in this case using a power harrow on the lighter soil is perhaps overkill a bit.