The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Beating the weather
Grain prices show encouraging rise
The grain harvest is home. Or the bulk of it is, at least. The region’s barley, wheat and oil seed rape is in store, big straw bales are under cover and combines are rapidly being replaced in autumnal fields by tractors, ploughs and cultivators.
It may not have been a recordbreaking year but, by all accounts, the harvest of 2016 hasn’t been a bad one either.
East of Scotland Farmers general manager Robin Barron described the season as a “long drawn-out” affair, with below average yields for spring barley and average yields for wheat.
The biggest issues for oil seed rape came at the beginning of August when fully ripe crops were bit by strong gales.
Perthshire farmer Ian Sands said a late spring sowing season and a lack of sunshine in the summer months had resulted in reduced yields of around a quarter tonne an acre across all crops.
Spring barley was cut at higher moisture than normal on many farms and will result in extra drying costs.
There were some difficult weeks and for eight damp days minus just four cutting hours in mid-September Ian said his combine was stationary, with 700 acres of barley still standing and ready to cut.
The upside of lower yields, a drop in the area of grain sown and a fall in sterling in the wake of the Brexit vote, is that prices for malting barley are expected to be considerably firmer than last year.
From £110-£115/tonne in 2015, the latest estimates are that it will be worth around £130 when end of harvest prices are announced.
Over in the potato fields lifting has been under way for around two weeks and growers are optimistic that after three turbulent years, they will have more to celebrate this autumn.
It’s still early days and yields are below average, especially for late main crop varieties like Maris Piper but prices are looking good, largely because producers in Europe have quality and yield issues.
Unusually, some English ware has been exported to France already.
In the tattie fields of Angus, Perthshire and Fife, the quality of the produce coming out of the ground is pleasing growers. They blame reduced yields on a late spring and a summer that was never “growthy” but NFU Scotland’s potato committee chairman Pete Grewar says the weather is also responsible for the fine quality of this year’s tubers.
“The rain came at the right time in mid-June, which reduced common scab. Slow and steady growth in June and July meant there were no big spurts, so no growth cracking,” he said. “There hasn’t been much joy in the last three seasons so the potato industry badly needs a good year.”