2023 Harvest frustrations. It's late, it won't stop raining & grain prices are on the rise

[Music] foreign to a new Harry's farm video and it's the time of year to get the combine out the shed I can't I looked on the figures on this combine we actually finished Harvest on the 8th of August last year today is the 20th of July so yeah ridiculous it's almost 12 months being in the shade of 339 days isn't it I think and if you're looking it's a bit Dusty in things this is something we did this year we we blew everything off we you basically this all opens up yeah if I just do this blew everything off but it was in the grain shed where we keep it and there was a bit of grain going out and things so it's a bit Dusty and things but we didn't wash it off this year we didn't do that the previous year as well just because if you actually hose it off in sort of October time there is this risk of sort of rust building up and water sitting in bearings so that's why it looks not particularly clean So the plan now is to spend a week or so getting this combine ready for Harvest which is still probably a couple of weeks away just to make it look a bit smarter so power wash Etc I actually did some a lot on the last video I mentioned that I was waiting for the rain to arrive because it was starting dare I say go a bit drought here I think the date of my last video 10th of June it was and we've been away family holidays that's about three weeks away from the farm got back just before Goodwood Festival speed and things and I did a drone shot over the farm on the 18th of June and the 5th of July just to see the effect we did have some rain I was waiting for rain when I did that last video we were promised about 40 mil and if I look at things we actually got eight mil so nowhere near what was promised and just to go over the rain figures again from the 9th of May to the 11th of June to over a month three mil of rain on this farm and on these sort of brashy soils that really hit the wheat and if I show you what it all looked like on the 18th of June this is a drone shot going over and you can really start to see the sort of white areas where the wheat says I haven't got any moisture and a sort of soil sort of different soils is like a mottled effect it almost looks like marbles you get the veins of clay and just a bit more growth or a bit less across the fields the rain that came in June was better than nothing we had uh let's have a look 30 mil of rain in June and the big day was the 20th of June 16 and a half mil wasn't really enough to put it back to where it was but wheat is so resilient I've noticed it sort of hung on even though it looks very much sinessing so we term it when it starts get ready for Harvest and I just hope there's grain fill in there but it's a bit patchy we'll go and have a look at the wheat and I'll show you what I mean but there we're in July and uh it just won't stop raining so there's lots of grumpy Farmers around just waiting for two or three dry days so they can get on with the combine there's some barley being done but it's let's say 25th of July we've had 65 mil of rain so far this month in 20 days and if I look back again to last year this time last year 38 degrees we were absolutely cooking in the UK today I think it's 18 or 19 degrees so yeah that's what's going on sort of overall but what I'm going to do some things like the conditions we've got now and that includes the wild bird mix so we're going to head over there now well this is one of two areas of wild bird mix on the farm this is quite a big patch here it's a over two acres over over a hectare of uh wild bird mix and the idea of this this is winter feed for the birds is part of the countryside stewardship I've got going on on the farm and while we put this in in good condition that lack of rain in may just meant it never germinated we had to wait until the rains in June before it got going he had that eight mil of rain as I say about 10th of June and the proper 16 mil about 18th of June and that's been growing ever since then and you can sort of see what's going on this is the kale which is looks looks like oil seed rape and just like obviously rate is getting attacked by flea Beetle that's what all those holes and those each eating out bits you can see on the leaves and this is mustard here and that's also getting a bit of um stuff getting eaten it there's a bad bit of cake look at that one but fortunately with the amount of rain that's the one Advanced good thing about the weather this has had 65 mil of rain in July and warm soils means it'll get a breeze will move on and growing and it's not too hot so this is the crop that likes this current pretty drab summer we're getting and it's what it's like this doesn't really sure until September October because what you're trying to do with this is feed the birds through the winter so you want all the seeds set and available in those winter months so December January February months is when this should be much bigger and the birds will love me for putting this in that's the theory anyway anyway let's go and have a look at the wheat just before we look at the wheat you'll see here I've just mowing this or topped it as it's turned because these borders between the field and the stone wall are wild um refuse areas and we don't touch them at all the other thing about this margin last night the cows must have got wind and I just topped all the margins because they decided to get out and they were all down here very happy because suddenly they can explore the farm and see where to go it's like a like a Motorway if you're a cow a mode margin like this fortunately we all got them back in on the grass and they behaved and they're still there now yeah we see Stokes storm ice field mice that sort of thing sort of living in the grass here as well as deer as you know on this farm that big herd of deer have all disappeared somewhere I haven't seen them for weeks now thank goodness but that's what's going on here I have to wait until the middle of July until I can actually mow a four meters strip round was it three meters I think three meter but next to the crop because I don't want the sort of grass getting into the crop the one thing we've had this year I have to say is fantastic weed control if you look at this wheat it looks very good very clean now looking at the wheat this had cenesto as you saw from those drone shots but wheat like still likes to get the seed out and I just don't know what so Stanley Stanley I'm gonna go nuts I just rub that out that that is rapidly getting ready for Harvest it's amazing how it's moved on even though we haven't had um dry weather I would expect that to be 30 40 moisture but this recent rain what happens is you can see I'm just a bit worried it's going to go sort of a sort of uh you get some just there just sort of disease on the heads just because it's so been so moist um you just get a build up of some um deposits on the grain that means it's going to be very dusty come Harvest and the other thing I'm getting is the herbicides the soil acting herbicides and they basically lose their action over the month since you put we put them on in October so by now they're just non-existent so the rain has triggered a few weed to then go up so that was a bit of a barrier that bit um actually floods out and you can see some wild oat plants just coming up there which is annoying because that wouldn't have happened in a normal year but so much rain in July has triggered well in June July has triggered that to grow get above the wheat so yeah the other thing on the wheat I was budgeting about 160 180 pounds a ton it's all down to what's happening in Ukraine and recently the price has gone up because the Black Sea grain deal has been stopped and they're now saying any grain shipments going in out will be treated as warships and will be attacked nightmare for everyone concerned and also grain Traders then reacted to it and 200 pounds is where wheat is priced before well October November time somewhere like that and I I just say it now because if it does carry on what's happening in Ukraine they might be able to ship out VIA Rail to Poland but there's different gauge Railways as I understand it's not nearly as easy as it was bringing it out by ship so if the barricades remain down we can expect feed wheat like this crop to continue to be strong on price perhaps climb further 200 pounds and then we're going to see food inflation because this is the basis for um all feed for chickens and pigs and well some Dairy uses the nuts as well that sort of feed week base so don't know impossible to predict the future at the moment but grain prices are on the move again in the wrong direction for inflation let's go have a look at the overseed rate well this is the overseed rate and if it's it's looks like it's getting raised for Harvest we've actually gone through here with glyphosate which is a desiccant and why I use that is because there's a lot of weed in here as well it doesn't all look like that if you swing around to here you can see there's the opposite rate but beyond it is a lot of weed so I'm treating it this is the downside when you get a crop that doesn't work a flailed crop like this yes I've got obviously rape in this bit but then the rest of it just grows weeds and things and again because we've had all this rain it's all got going and it's really rampant so the we went into I think today's Thursday we did it on Tuesday it's all being sprayed off I'm going to give it until next week and then we'll be out with the topper and take it all out because what I want to do is put my first wheat in here come October time so once we're harvested I will then quickly Stir It Up with the carrier cultivator because I want all the seeds at us in those heads to be germinated and we're cultivated again and again in between now and October and hopefully get rid of the weed Bank as it's termed or the seed bank so and the other thing on all seed rape the price on this is gone rocketing up as well we're all budgeting around 320 330 pounds it went to 350. if I rang a gray Merchant today I would get 400 pounds for Aussie rape off the combine as its term so it's movement straight away and that's thrown all the budgets up in the air again because I was looking to grow you know that enhanced double or not grow obviously rape again but the budget has moved because the gross margins move because the price has gone up and it's all this political situation with Ukraine so it's impossible yet again to try and do the budget so I'm going to go and talk about this more in the next video because I'm I'm not going to discuss 24 because they've just come out of the SFI new rates for 23.24 I've got a meeting next week about that but um yes it's it's just the political issues going on in the world it's causing the grain prices a bit all over the place and the fertilizer price I've actually bought some fertilizer 300 pounds that's half the price of what it was last year so lots going on on Harry's Farm I hope you enjoyed this sort of update there'll be more regular updates coming because we're right in the harvest season so if you did enjoy this video keep watching keep subscribing more videos coming on very soon [Music]

Channel: Harry's Farm

Views: 193,473

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Id: juXXt4ZHS-8

Length: 13min 9sec (789 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 21 2023