Following the third difficult harvest in five years, arable farmers across Scotland have been urged to do everything possible to reduce the serious risks imposed by a combination of late-harvesting crop rotations and today’s far more challenging seasons.

Speaking at this winter’s specialist SMART Farming events at Inverness, Turriff, Dundee and Coldstream, Jim Rennie of Masstock Scotland stressed that too many growers are putting too much harvesting pressure on their systems by concentrating their rotations on winter wheat and spring barley.

“In a good summer and autumn or with a limited acreage it may be quite alright to have 80% of your crop coming to harvest in September and October,” he pointed out.  “But it’s another thing entirely with the sort of weather we are seeing these days, not to mention the large and larger acreages people are having to manage with fewer and fewer staff.

“This last season every part of Scotland received more than 110 mm of rain in August and September, with central and northern regions getting nearly 150 mm. What’s more, the records show we had barely 13 rain free days in Scotland in August and just nine in September. And it got even wetter  in October.

“So it really wasn’t surprising most people’s harvest got badly delayed once again, with yields and quality compromised and autumn plantings seriously affected on many farms; especially with today’s later maturing varieties. Interestingly, old faithful Golden Promise which is still being grown for malting was a fortnight earlier to harvest than current spring barley malting varieties.”

Under these conditions, Jim Rennie strongly advised growers to reduce their harvesting pressure by including more winter barley in future rotations.

After all, ripening well before oilseed rape in July to early August, the crop profits from coming to harvest at a time of far lower weather risk and significantly longer harvesting days.

In July recent records show Scotland can normally count on fully 20 rain-free days. And each July day typically provides an average of six hours combining under northern conditions compared to four and a half in August and only three in September.

Compared with the 40/60 early to late harvesting balance Jim Rennie considers far more appropriate, harvesting around 20% of their combinable crop in July and August and the vast majority in September and October, as many Scottish farms currently do, requires nearly a third more combining capacity. And even then things have the potential to go badly wrong, as so many growers have found to their cost in recent years.

 “Switching a proportion of your acreage from spring barley or second wheat to winter barley really makes sense in cutting the harvesting pressure and helping you cope with less-than-ideal combining conditions,” he stressed.  “At the same time it gives you a far more reliable entry for oilseed rape.

“Winter barley has certainly fallen out of favour recently. But its margins stack-up very well when you consider the lower level of inputs it requires, the extra value it can generate with straw sales, and significantly reduced drying costs; especially so with the major progress made in both yields and agronomy through breeding in recent years.

“Our latest Masstock Farm Consultancy crop budgets, indeed, show a 9 t/ha crop of winter feed barley delivering a margin after drying within a whisker of £1000/ha. This is virtually identical to a 4 t/ha crop of oilseed rape, almost £100/ha more than a 9 t/ha crop of Group 4 first wheat and over £150/ha more than a 6.25 t/ha crop of spring malting barley.

“So Scottish farmers have everything to gain by adjusting their rotations to the reality of today’s conditions to significantly reduce the major risk that harvesting has become to their livelihoods.”