Spring Barley - General Thread

6600 said:
Fair dues to anyone who thinks €500/ha of a GROSS margin is worthwhile they must have a lot of ha!

Teagasc hand pick a bunch of handy candidate farmers in a different sectors for this 'survey'.
Then give some of their staff full time state funded jobs to drive out to them and take away their records to compile what are essentially incomplete accounts for a particular enterprise on the farm.
All the while a qualified professional is doing the same job and including items such as year end debtors, creditors, year end stock values, interest, depreciation and all the zeros..
All the info on the real profits or otherwise of farming are already being prepared just not by semi state amateurs.
But why bother when the headlines are decided well before any compilation is done.

I am completely against making such info public. Shortly we'll be like the UK Tesco milk suppliers who have to submit annual accounts as part of their contracts.
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i never said 500 was enough or worthwhile all i said was it was impressive in a bad year, its impressive to me as i wasn,t any where near that figure anyway but the figures are the same for all farmers so at least its consistent, i,m certainly not going to back up teagasc as i think its going backways in most sectors but i will say it would be almost impossible to cost own machinery in any type of farming unless you,re buying new and changing regularly
 
Iggy said:
Same here @CORK trying to finish up wheat and just when it's at the mark along comes a downpour. I have 100 acres of planet sb to cut and looks a tremendous crop all standing but monsoon coming Saturday night and again next week.
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Was over near you baling and caught the side of it ,just got finished when it rained , it was a better day than at home as we have cut nothing all week , hopefully some will happen tomorrow as the weather is not settling at all
 
Got a shower at dinner time but said fuck it and started anyways, got another shower at 4 but stayed at it. Coming in around 22% if we get this monsoon on Saturday evening I'll be wishing I had it cut. So come hell or high water I'll try get it done tomorrow. It's been a nasy week, rain dry repeat.
 
What a week- cut 2 tanks yesterday and a deluge, started today at 3 and by pure luck we escaped as showers fell within half a mile of where we were, there was 5mms of a deluge at home in 30mins. Down to 1 good days cutting now and some of that is spring wheat which I'm not actually sure is that ripe and the beans are 3 weeks away. Quality is holding up remarkably well actually and still making malt, all planet but the odd head on the ground but it's very Minor when they would be all added up. Plenty lads in the locality are a lot worse off and have flip all cut with a week. Straw is a mess but that will be got at some stage.
 
@laoisfarmer Your lucky to get that straw. I've wheat straw down over two weeks and don't think it will be fit by saturday. Rows are getting very small looking now. Was hoping to sow rape next week in these fields but will have to change plans.
 
Funkeyfarmer said:
Question for ye lads never done it before but thinking about it the last few weeks I was planning to grub the sb fields and leave to green up over winter. would it be a good idea to try and cut down on weeds etc for next season. Have a bit of canary grass this year plus the normal weeds to deal with. I should say that I'll leave the cattle on the field to graze down any green cover over winter.
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After last year and poor/late cover crop I wouldnt recommend that at all, ground ploughed up only OK and I think it affected our establishment in the later crop in particular headlands.

Those showers were a lot more widespread today, very very glad to be finished cutting at least as got a right humdinger here at 4pm.

I did ask this morning in the local merchants what the anticipated remaining harvest left was and was told 30-40%. In terms of area I'd reckon it's closer to the former, later crops are simply not doing as well. Not sure what it's like around the country.

Today's shower was the first substantial rain we had for Maybe a fortnight but last Saturday and yesterday were the only two good cutting days around here.
 
Every year I try to do something different with a portion of my acreage as a trial to see what, if any difference it might make. Some of the seasoned experts here might have an explanation for my results but I just do mini trials that are unlikely to cause the crop to suffer.
First difference this year is that I drilled two fields on the out farm at 13.5 stone/acre to see how much or if any improvement in straw quantity shows up. This year I got 60 bales extra (4x4) on a 22 acre field than last year. This kinda stands to reason that more seeds should equal more straw but I stand to be corrected on that. Grain yield was back from last year to 3.4 tons/ac but last year was exceptional to this year.
Next difference on the home farm I normally apply Sulcan in three separate applications with the intentions of feeding the crop slowly but constantly which can be difficult to time correctly due to rain forecast and uptake of previous dressing. This year I applied it all in the one go to see if it made any difference. Yield wise it was back in similar proportions as the out farm but also factor in the difference in the two years. I don't grow malt here so can't tell if protein levels have varied, was more of a yield test if any. Result inconclusive but will go back to triple spreading next year again as its a great opportunity to see the crop growing in its entirety.
Just some reading for ye, nothing scientific.
MF30
 
Started spring barley today, it's been a long harvest, very hard to get a run at it and make progress, we moved a good journey to a bit of wheat last Sunday, it had spilled rain when we got there, we pulled out and went elsewhere, started into about 20ac of wheat on Sunday evening, we got it finished on Tuesday night, moved to spring barley on Wednesday morning, only got started there this afternoon.
5 days 20ac.
Output is very poor, that said we are getting there, taking every chance we get to do something, even if it's one load at 22% it's something done.
All the straw is baled up with the exception of what was cut today.
The Wuffler is the greatest yolk that ever came around the place.
 
Iggy said:
@laoisfarmer Your lucky to get that straw. I've wheat straw down over two weeks and don't think it will be fit by saturday. Rows are getting very small looking now. Was hoping to sow rape next week in these fields but will have to change plans.
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Have the same problem myself, I think come Saturday evening it might be baled anyway and moved on for composting straight away just to get it cleared. I was meant to move to ballybrittas to bale more but will hopefully get that done today.
 
ithastopay said:
Started spring barley today, it's been a long harvest, very hard to get a run at it and make progress, we moved a good journey to a bit of wheat last Sunday, it had spilled rain when we got there, we pulled out and went elsewhere, started into about 20ac of wheat on Sunday evening, we got it finished on Tuesday night, moved to spring barley on Wednesday morning, only got started there this afternoon.
5 days 20ac.
Output is very poor, that said we are getting there, taking every chance we get to do something, even if it's one load at 22% it's something done.
All the straw is baled up with the exception of what was cut today.
The Wuffler is the greatest yolk that ever came around the place.
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we are seeing that as well,bought the elho cheap and in a hurry and has paid for itself allready,cost us 1500 euro
 
kverneland es 80 said:
we are seeing that as well,bought the elho cheap and in a hurry and has paid for itself allready,cost us 1500 euro
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We should've bought one years ago, it's hard to believe how fast straw can dry, straw that could take a day or more to come on its own, an hour after the Wuffler it would be fit to bale. Output is savage after a wide head.
 
ithastopay said:
We should've bought one years ago, it's hard to believe how fast straw can dry, straw that could take a day or more to come on its own, an hour after the Wuffler it would be fit to bale. Output is savage after a wide head.
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Is it much of an advantage over the classic haybob?
 
ithastopay said:
We should've bought one years ago, it's hard to believe how fast straw can dry, straw that could take a day or more to come on its own, an hour after the Wuffler it would be fit to bale. Output is savage after a wide head.
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What kind out forward speeds are you working at, or are you just working directly behind the combine?
 
ithastopay said:
Enormous, I'm my opinion.
I see no loss of straw, it's gentle on the straw, lifting the row fluffing it up and leaving it more open to dry.
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Would you nearly give every field a whip? I'd imagine the cost per acre is tiny at that output-you'll have shite made of it by the time this is all over!!!!
 
Blackwater boy said:
Would you nearly give every field a whip? I'd imagine the cost per acre is tiny at that output-you'll have shite made of it by the time this is all over!!!!
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I don't think we have baled any straw that wasn't Wuffled this year. Some has been done twice.
The cost doesn't matter, the weather has been difficult and it has to be done.
A contractor would probably charge €8/ac, having our own means we can take advantage of any opportunity, I'm currently sitting in a field having my breakfast, I've the baler and Wuffler here, the contractor we got in the past was very good but having our own is well worth it.
The weather is generally worse in our area than in the main tillage areas, any machine the helps us to best bad weather is worth having.
So far reports are very good from straw customers, in the future I think irrespective of weather we will wuffle all the straw, it will give us more hours baling by getting to start earlier and having good dry straw will keep customers happy.
Someone will probably tell me that we could chop the straw and avoid all this work, indeed we could, however that's very easy to say, when the land is owned, or there is a good sfp, we have to pay rent and have no sfp on rented land. If we don't sell straw we could not pay our bills.
It's just that simple.
 
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Straw unfortunately is looking like the most profitable part of cereal growing this year. Especially in your area straw is scarce and valuable.
 
ithastopay said:
I don't think we have baled any straw that wasn't Wuffled this year. Some has been done twice.
The cost doesn't matter, the weather has been difficult and it has to be done.
A contractor would probably charge €8/ac, having our own means we can take advantage of any opportunity, I'm currently sitting in a field having my breakfast, I've the baler and Wuffler here, the contractor we got in the past was very good but having our own is well worth it.
The weather is generally worse in our area than in the main tillage areas, any machine the helps us to best bad weather is worth having.
So far reports are very good from straw customers, in the future I think irrespective of weather we will wuffle all the straw, it will give us more hours baling by getting to start earlier and having good dry straw will keep customers happy.
Someone will probably tell me that we could chop the straw and avoid all this work, indeed we could, however that's very easy to say, when the land is owned, or there is a good sfp, we have to pay rent and have no sfp on rented land. If we don't sell straw we could not pay our bills.
It's just that simple.
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Nothing like a good wuffle of a saturday morning !!

Glad to hear it's working well for you. There are that many of them appearing around here the last two yrs I think there must be a breeding colony around.

Amazing for a machine that lads were leaving to rot in a lot of places till recently
 
ithastopay said:
I don't think we have baled any straw that wasn't Wuffled this year. Some has been done twice.
The cost doesn't matter, the weather has been difficult and it has to be done.
A contractor would probably charge €8/ac, having our own means we can take advantage of any opportunity, I'm currently sitting in a field having my breakfast, I've the baler and Wuffler here, the contractor we got in the past was very good but having our own is well worth it.
The weather is generally worse in our area than in the main tillage areas, any machine the helps us to best bad weather is worth having.
So far reports are very good from straw customers, in the future I think irrespective of weather we will wuffle all the straw, it will give us more hours baling by getting to start earlier and having good dry straw will keep customers happy.
Someone will probably tell me that we could chop the straw and avoid all this work, indeed we could, however that's very easy to say, when the land is owned, or there is a good sfp, we have to pay rent and have no sfp on rented land. If we don't sell straw we could not pay our bills.
It's just that simple.
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@ithastopay
If you had of mentioned that you were" sitting on the wuffler having waffles for breakfast before going wuffling for the day"
You could have been forever immortalised in a children's nursery rhyme ....an opportunity missed
 
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Got the spring barley finished last night and got 12 acres of spring wheat (serious crop of doubleshot) for a neighbour cut this morn before the rain, down to 4 acres of sp wheat for him and our beans which are 3 weeks away. We had an exceptional spring barley harvest with every tonne making malting and record yields for us.
As we moved the combine home to the shed this afternoon my brother and I made a quick stop at the graveyard to tell the grandparents about the harvest, my grandmother passed away earlier in the year and my grandfather 15 years ago, 2 huge farming people who loved the harvest. We filled them in on the yields and told them we were off home to change the underpants and throw on the Waterford jersey and head to Dublin tonight to settle in for the big game tomorrow.
All in all a good harvest that went off without a single breakdown despite all the dodgy weather and half days. Go on the deise....
 
Managed to finish our spring barley yesterday. One third of it baled and in the shed.

Across the 92 acres of Planet (seed and malting), the crop averaged a yield of 3.9tn/acre adjusted to 20%mc. Moistures ranged from 16% to 24%. KPH's 64-66 and screenings at a max of 1%. One third of the crop was sown after beans and averaged 4.1tn at 20%mc. The rest was second crop after either beans or wosr.
Managed to keep it all standing well and very little brackling was present. T1 was Proline, T2 was Ceriax + Bravo. There were some grain losses due to sappy straw and poor harvesting days.

All sown around the 12-14th April off memory.
 
Got rained off around 1 pm again today for the third time this week. Conflicted though between being happy to have got through what we did given the weather and frustrated for want of half a day to finish cutting, or make any progress at all with baling.
Yields are very good, 3.2 tonnes per acre,which we never got before to be honest, all passing for malting. Lots of straw too.

I hope the deise put in a better final performance than last time out in the final. Without doubt my favourite weekend of the year.
 
CORK said:
Managed to finish our spring barley yesterday. One third of it baled and in the shed.

Across the 92 acres of Planet (seed and malting), the crop averaged a yield of 3.9tn/acre adjusted to 20%mc. Moistures ranged from 16% to 24%. KPH's 64-66 and screenings at a max of 1%. One third of the crop was sown after beans and averaged 4.1tn at 20%mc. The rest was second crop after either beans or wosr.
Managed to keep it all standing well and very little brackling was present. T1 was Proline, T2 was Ceriax + Bravo. There were some grain losses due to sappy straw and poor harvesting days.

All sown around the 12-14th April off memory.
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That's a serious average yield, shows up the benefits of rotation in crops. I haven't seen a decent crop that was fully standing this year, any Planet I saw around here went down. You really have it fine tuned to an art! Fair dues.
MF30
 
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