Archived News

6th September 2015

The mist burnt off well today as seen in the earlier post at Manor Farm, Wotton, and it has been a fine day for harvesting at Manor Farm, Shalford.

It was a pleasure to meet many of the locals who took the time to watch the combine harvester, corn carting and baling and showed such interest in the farming process and what the wheat would be used for. If there are any more questions from Shalford then do please ask.

Unfortunately we are at least a month behind now and the wheat has been knocked down by rain and green wheat shoots are sprouting from beneath. 

As many of the Shalford folk said today, this crop was golden and ready to cut in July or early August and now it’s black!

The barley at the start of harvest was dry as it came off the field and was ready for immediate storage, but everything since then has needed to go through the drier with the grain being reduced to below 15% moisture content.

Just last week we have used 20,000 litres of fuel on tractors, the grain drier and a few spells on the combine harvester.

Whilst the grain today doesn’t look great, it has been a real bonus with the sun shining and 60 acres harvested by the time I left at 5.30. 

As Laurence is combining at Shalford, Ed is cultivating after this year’s oilseed rape at Cranleigh and that will then be sown with milling wheat for next year.

This year’s wheat fields at Wotton have been fertilised with recycled paper and then drilled with oilseed rape.

Tomorrow the paper spreading will begin at Park farm.

The paper when it was delivered last year