Archived News

24th August 2014

The tail end of hurricane Bertha drenched the crops for a couple of days and made harvest difficult for almost a week.  Laurence managed to cut 20 acres of wheat on the Wednesday after the rain, but it came off the field at 19% moisture and despite going through the drier there was too much wet grain to get it all dry; some of it is still being dried with the on-floor air system.

Since then the weather has improved and the last of the wheat, Barley and finally the oats have been harvested.  

The heavy rain knocked down 50% of the oats at Coast Hill Farm, so we were pleased that it still yielded 3 tonnes per acre and came off at 13-14% moisture.  Friday 22nd August was the last day of harvesting cereals for 2014 but we expect the maize harvest to also be earlier this year.

The oats and triticale (over 3 tonne/acre) were both grown on seed contracts, so our seed will be sown on other farms next year.

The results are back on the milling wheat samples; all successfully made Class 1 Milling Wheat with high Hagbergs and average proteins.

200 tonne of feed wheat has already been sold to Lillico Attlee.

The barley has had above average yields with some being crimped for on-farm use and some of the grain being kept for feed mix for the Friesian x cattle.

Yields of oil seed rape were down on average this year.

Vistiv is a premium quality oil seed rape which we have grown for the first time this year on the fields at Upfolds, it grew well with the highest yield of the varieties we grew.

With high oleic and low linolenic fatty acid oil, Vistiv reduces saturated fat levels in processed foods.

We have heard that the Vistiv OSR has passed its tests and will be moved by Glencore in October.

With combining completed, Laurence has been stacking straw and rolling fields and has cut the grass in Hatch Meadow in readiness for the church fete tomorrow.