I thought I’d start this week with a picture of us actually combining something. Progress is being made, and all my indicators and benchmarks point to the fact that we are now half way through harvest. As a rough rule of thumb, harvest takes about 8 weeks from start to finish, so time wise we are half way. The total are to be harvested is now slightly less than the area we have cut, so that makes us just over half way. Finally, the combine has successfully cut round 3 out of the 5 pylons in fields growing combinable crops. This guide is not as accurate this year, and I would imagine by the time I am writing the next update there will be no pylons left to cut round.
Weather wise, things were so-so. We got combining on Monday afternoon, Wednesday afternoon, and again on Saturday and Sunday. Friday was a washout, which meant that although we were cutting on Saturday the grain was very wet, so has taken a bit of drying. The general theme of the year continued, with lots of little bits of rain which stopped us cutting without there being a deluge.
We had to call on Stuart Millar from Sellars this week. Stuart has looked after our combines for a number of years, and I’m sure his heart sinks every time he sees my number when his phone rings.
When I was putting on the straw chopper I noticed drips of oil down the side of the combine. He suspected that the hydraulic oil cooler was cracked, which is not good. However, he cleaned things up, tightened up a couple of hose clips, and things appeared to get better. He left me with instructions to keep an eye on things.
Another problem we are having this year is brackling in the barley.
Brackling is when the stem breaks over half way up when the crop is ripe. This means that instead of the head being held up in the air, it is hanging inches off the ground. When the combine cutter bar cuts the straw, the head drops on the ground, rather than go in the combine.
We try to help the situation by fitting lifters to the front of the cutter bar, which lifts the heads up a bit. It does help, but if the brackling is really bad, then there isn’t much else you can do.
On a brighter note, all the samples of Laureate spring barley have made malting standards this year. We sell our malting barley to East Of Scotland Farmers, and they have uplifted 4 lorry loads this week. It is the usual story though, that every farmer in the country has malting barley to be moved, so you cannot always get lorries in when you need them. We have successfully juggled our shed space so far this year, but things could get interesting next week when we start cutting a different variety.
In summary I have to say that we now at least feel as though we are getting somewhere. The forecast is good for the next week, and we have a few fields ready to harvest, so by the next update I am hoping to report good progress.