Grain yields and all this rain

[ford4ever]

Not too sure whats it like the othe side of the pond but with all the rain we have had in the past 2 weeks was just wondering what effect this will have on barley.Was looking at a field early this morning and it looked fairly lodged.One farmer around here with over 1000 acres nad nothing cut yet.If he got 2 or 3 weeks sun would he be still ok.Looked ok to me for harvesting about 2 weeks ago??

Lot of related questions there so let the experts come back

[Gav836]

The yields may still be there but the quality of whats cut won't be. Some crops this side of the water have started to sprout in the ear, or in the case of OSR actually germinating in the pods as they have got so wet. Anything what has actually lodged completey now will no doubt start to grow in the ears very quickly meaning the quality will go down and money will be lost, more so in drying costs as well, many people are now saying sod it and cutting it wet to get it in while some quality is still there and swallowing the drying costs which aren't cheap with current fuel prices

[robl12]

Here is a link to the farmers weekly web page that shows harvests in different areas also shows the yeilds.

http://www.fwi.co.uk/Articles/2008/08/13/111644/harvest-gets-under-way-in-scotland-before-the-rain.html

Up here many of the stock farmers made the decission to cut at 35% moisture and crimp it for feed. Some of the swathed rape has been lying for about a month now not sure how that will be. Up to I went away on tuesday I had not seen too much in the way of lodged crops just a few spots in a few fields nowhere near as bad as last year.

No idea about quality as most seafield estates will not sell it off for a while yet. If it is anything like last year and supply gets tight malters will end up taking any quality as malt.

[nashmach]

It is not looking good at all Fintan - we have a lea field at home this year and thank God we put less fertiliser on it as it lodged really badly in the 1 foot of doubling on the headlands and under trees - its been growing the past month - we will be keeping the header out of this 

Quality is definetly decreasing and fusarium has started with the wet weather. Don't know how we are going to cut our wet field this year

Still prefer to wait though and cut at 20% - we keep 10t for our own rolling and without air or a dryer need to ensure its as dry as possible

Remember last year the weather didn't take up till the 18th/19th and all was cut in great conditions in 2 weeks

[Tractorman810]

loads of fields starting to go past a good crop down thisw ay, well round plymouth area, i would say over 75% of fields are uncut at present, most rapes in, but wheat barley ect, ,not a chance, few combines getting in on the odd dry day, but they are very few between at the mo