The Press and Journal (Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire)
Union reports ‘better than expected’ harvest
Crops: Farmers’ fears of awful outcome did not come to fruition for all
Harvest 2018 has been better than expected, according to the National Farmers Union Scotland (NFUS).
The union said farmers’ fears of an awful harvest – brought about by a long, cold, wet winter followed by the joint hottest summer on record for the UK – did not come to fruition for all.
It said many growers were reporting better than expected yields. However, across the board many have reported poorer average yields from winter and spring barley, as well as for straw.
Wheat fortunes have been mixed with some growers reporting good quality, and others saying it got hit hard at the start of the summer and never fully recovered.
“Farmers had an uphill battle early in the year to get everything ready and planted for autumn harvest,” said NFUS combinable crops chairman and Perthshire farmer Ian Sands.
“Following up this wet winter and spring with such an unseasonably hot and dry summer could have been disastrous for cereal farmers who require a healthy balance of warm and damp weather to produce the crops that we are renowned for.”
He said an upside of the hot weather was that most grain was at an acceptable level and less drying has been required.
“Winter crops are getting sown into good quality seed beds and are well ahead of last year, when we struggled to clear fields of some crops and did not have the conditions to start sowing when we needed to,” added Mr Sands.
In the north-east, the area’s farmers have reported mixed yields, with winter and spring barley back on last year and straw yields back around three bales per acre.
Elsewhere, farmers in Orkney have reported a reasonable yield for spring barley, but lower straw yields, while farmers in Argyll and the islands are reported to be taking solace in the fact that everything harvested has been of a high level, despite yields being back.
NFUS has issued a call to all growers to complete its online annual harvest survey at www.bit. ly/2OqUtjL by Monday. A new dairy class has been added to the show programme for this year’s AgriScot event.
The event, on Wednesday November 21, will feature a new any other breed section for dairy cattle, in addition to the existing Ayrshire, Holstein, Jersey and Red and White classes.
Organisers say the new class, which is open to both in-milk heifers and cows, aims to attract exhibitors of breeds such as Brown Swiss, British Friesian and Dairy Shorthorn.
Event chairman Robert Neill said: “These breeds may not be numerically strong within the national herd, but nevertheless we believe there are some top-class cattle out there and we look forward to welcoming them along to our show ring.
“Our show schedule is available now, with closing date for entries on October 31.”
He said this year’s cattle judge is Kevin Wilson, of Wood Farm, Thursby, Carlisle. He milks 440 pedigree Holsteins, which average 10,300 litres of milk.