dove farm diaries

combining at dove farm

It’s not been the easiest of harvests this year – patchy I think, is a fair way to describe things.

We’ve done the barley, which is sitting in a shed, happily – and the oats – but not making much headway on the wheat, thanks to damp and showery weather.

25 acres out of 120 acres still to do at one site – then there’s one more move to do with the combine, to bring it back to Dove farm.  The remaining  15 acres of spring wheat here, is waving defiantly at me.

When people think about  getting the harvest in – they tend to think about the grain, pouring from the combine, and into the waiting trailer – but they conveniently forget about the straw that’s created  behind the combine, as it goes along. Well, it’s all part of harvest too – in fact there’s been some years, when the straw has been worth more than the grain.

There’s as much stress  getting the straw baled up, dry; as there is getting the grain in.

It’s not so bad, if a standing crop gets rained on – as long as some dry breezy weather follows – but once the corn is cut, and the straw gets wet – that’s just depressing.

Its always a race against time, and a gamble on what to do for the best.  If you are combining in daggly, damp conditions, then its preferable to leave the straw for a couple of days, after combining, to allow it to dry out.  But with an uncertain forecast,  it’s sometimes better, to bale it up as new straw, to get the job finished, and  hope that it will be sold and used before it gets chance to go mouldy. So hard to make the right decision, although sometimes you are governed by who is available to put in the labour when you want it doing.

What often happens is – you decide to  leave the straw,  it gets rained on, and then you have to wait for sunny weather to return, and dry it all out again.

Then people wonder why farmers are grumpy…