October 2022
The build up to harvest is always mixed with a bit of trepidation and excitement, this year was no exception, Harvest 2022 was our first harvest following direct drilling with the Opico Sky Easy Drill. After the hard work and cost of growing a crop, there’s always a bit of uncertainty of how successful it will be, irrespective of just how well you think the crops have looked throughout the growing season.
Despite the record high temperatures and dry spring, I have to say the Oil Seed Rape and wheats have looked well all year. Harvest was looking to be the earliest ever experienced, just as we prepared to start on the 21st of July, it rained and did so for a further 8 days! We’ve not run a combine here for around 30 years, I’ve used a contractor ever since, for just over 300 acres it’s not cost effective.
Our light sandy soils have never broken records, but this years OSR has been the highest yielding rape crop we’ve ever managed, given the conditions this season and low establishment and inputs I’m over the moon with 1.7t/acre. It’s difficult to conclude how or why, all I can suggest is that it had a good start into a moist seed bed last year, had little or no evidence of flee beetle and has looked like a good crop all year.
We pretty much rolled straight into the wheat, progress was slightly hampered by a minor fire on the combine, fortunately no major damage, but parts availability slowed the repair down. Wheat yields were effected by the excessive heat, with Skyfall yielding 3.5 t/acre and Skyscraper producing 3.4. Although a delayed start from planned, harvest seemed to be over in a very short space of time, dare I say very easy, probably some of the best harvesting conditions we’ve ever experienced, our small cooperative grain store facility was soon filled with some ease this year.
Thoughts very quickly turned to cover crop establishment and trying the 7.5M Mzuri Rezult stubble rake, it’s been a bit of an experiment this year, running costs are extremely low and at 12-15kph you can cover the ground very quickly. Initial impressions of the rake have been encouraging, we chop all the straw on the farm, it helps with organic matter build up and with the cost of fertiliser it’s worth more to me than baling and selling it off, only slight issue is the combines chopper and chaff spreader don’t spread the full header width, leaving a gap between the mats of straw.
Running the rake at a slight angle to the tramlines, seems to have moved the straw enough to even this out, it also seems to have encouraged a ‘chit’ by slightly scratching the soil surface and mixing the straw, grains and soil. The OSR stubble was very dry and brittle this year, the rake also seemed to break it up to some degree. Compared to other parts of the country we’d had around 25-30 mm of rain, the chopped straw helped to retain some of that valuable moisture. 40 ha drilled before 2nd wheats. I even drilled some of it in the rain, something you couldn’t do onto ploughing or heavily cultivated ground.
Cover crop mix and sowing rates
Radish . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3kg/ha
Common vetch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14kg/ha
Phacelia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.25kg/ha
Clover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3kg/ha
Linseed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.75kg/ha
Buckwheat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12kg/ha 2023
Anatasia oil seed rape drilling @ 4.5kg/ha and slug pellets at 4.5 kg/ha was compeleted on the 31st of August, into pretty ideal conditions. The plan will be similar to last year, as low input as we can get away with, mindful of increasing costs. The biggest saving to date is fuel, between 4.5 – 5.5 l/ha on the drill depending on the field, somewhere in the region of two thirds less fuel use from our old system.
The plan is to have drilled 1st wheats by the 1st of October weather permitting, into cover crops. Single pass establishment with the Sky Drill has changed the way we farm, not only in the input costs, but in time, our old plough based system, was a slow, costly process, it works with our system and other business interests, it’s also beginning to gain some interest locally and the acreage I’m contract drilling will increase this autumn.
Direct Drilling not only reduces the time spent drilling, it allows for choosing the optimal timing for going drilling. Harvest 2022 has been one of the easiest in memory, the weather has had an impact in that, the drill is also a major factor, if this is what the future looks like, then so far, I’m convinced.
