Watch: a bad harvest looks better now

This year’s harvest has provided a perfect example for the theory of relativity. When I managed to get my seven acres of spring barley cut and baled (18 September), I complained about the yield, moisture content, low bushel weight, lack of straw, soft ground conditions and straw-broken nature of the overall crop.

Three weeks later, that same field suddenly looks like a roaring success story. Compared with a sizeable acreage of spring crop in this area, I am relatively well off, but I must remind myself that a bit of benchmarking in the winter will knock the shine off it and plunge me back into (relative) despair. I suspect this field will leave a gross margin that just about covers ground rent, and therefore the net margin will show a strong negative figure.

Yield was exactly two tonnes per acre at an average of 19% moisture. This was weighed when sold, and I can’t even hazard a guess at the price, because I didn’t ask how much barley is worth.

Perhaps that’s an indication of a bad businessman, although I wonder what good it would do to know just how poor the financial performance is likely to be. In the meantime, I prefer to relish that warm and glowing feeling that occurs when your harvest (no matter how small) is completed.

Straw

If there is anything to be pleased about, it is the quality of the straw (and the comfort of knowing I won’t have to go begging for it). At just over five 4x4 rounds per acre, yield was the lightest I can remember.

However, the shortness, allied to the brittle nature of the straw, will be a blessing in poultry houses and lambing pens this winter, and it should have a high soakability factor.

Everybody likes to see huge golden rows behind the combine, but that type of waxy material is far from ideal in lambing pens. Some of the fussy mothers (or ewes that take a dislike to one of their lambs) tend to constantly spin round in one direction and often end up with a back leg almost strangled by the pressure of a tightly wound straw rope.

Spray

Glyphosate was applied to most of the field on 25 August, and at that stage it was somewhere below 30% moisture (it certainly wasn’t near ready). Just over three weeks later, the whole field looked like it had been left for two months, with no hint of yellowness, just a shade of dull white that was beginning to blacken.

During those intervening days, spring barley (at least in this area) seemed to throw in the towel, and was rapidly collapsing (heads first) towards the soil. I suspect those whole heads of barley that are lost during combining don’t amount to much yield, even though it can look as if there’s a tonne to the acre left behind. The best plan is just to tell yourself it’ll provide a great bit of feeding for farmland birds during early winter (and pretend that crows and pigeons really don’t eat pickles of barley).

I wonder if a breakdown in disease control played a part, since the single application of fungicide (a hefty dose of Mobius) was applied on 2 June. Maybe that’s a mitigating factor in this crop’s demise, but other growers in the area reported the same issues even after follow-up sprays post ear emergence.

Prices

Some of the rumours concerning straw prices almost beggar belief, although my self-sufficiency makes this a paper exercise only. In addition, an astronomic price helps the barley margin, although it also has a detrimental effect on the recipient side (cattle, poultry, sheep).

I may have a few extra bales to sell in the springtime, but over the years it has proven wise to sell them at a relatively low price to local people who I’m friendly with. You can view that as neighbourliness, or perhaps it’s what is known in life as fishing with a long rod: either way, you never know when you’ll need that favour returned.