The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Harvest angst
Promising early start to the season has been marred by regular showers
Squadrons of combines are on standby this weekend, poised to tear into bumper crops of ripe spring barley in hundreds of fields across Tayside, Fife and Perthshire.
All that will hold them back is a recurrence of the rain that has plagued progress over the last few weeks.
Harvest angst is already in evidence among farmers and grain traders as a promising early start to the season has been marred by regular showers.
With the winter barley harvest over and only around 1% of oil seed rape remaining to be cut, the main event is spring barley, and while cutting is ahead of last year, crops are becoming overripe in the fields and there are fears of a drop in quality if they are not harvested soon.
Most reports indicate that quality is good and skinning is not an issue in the crops already cut, with the exception of some samples of Concerto.
Nitrogen levels vary by region but overall the average malting sample is below the desired 1.65N max required for the distilling market.
However it is early days, with the bulk of the harvest still to come, and Gavin Anderson of Tayside Grain said growers were cutting spring barley at high moisture contents.
“From our point of view, we have more across our weighbridge than this time last year, but ‘cut barley’ on farm is running out,” he said.
“We really need a good spell of weather to get things going and give us continuity of supply coming into our site.”
East of Scotland Farmers general manager, Robin Barron, said around 10-15% of his intake had been harvested, most of it between showers.
“So far quality is good and everything is meeting specifications,” he said.
“Yields are above average so far, at 6.8 to 8 t/ha but they may drop as harvest goes on as the later sown crops could be affected by the dry weather in May.
“If we got a run of good days we’d soon get through the bulk, the critical mass of the harvest.”
Roger Baird of WN Lindsay said his company was seeing wheat being harvested ahead of barley in some areas as a result of the dry spring.
Around 5-10% of his intake of spring barley had been harvested but 20% of the wheat was done.
He added that nitrogen levels were high in some samples and while some skinning was being seen in Concerto, it was not at “alarming” levels.
The other big imponderable is the spot price for malting barley, but maltsters say with so much of the harvest still to come it is too early to make predictions.
However Mr Baird forecast a tight supply of malting barley this year following germination problems in the south at spring time.