Making hay while the sun shines on a dried-out June

This year’s hay crop will go down as one where the quality is good if not very good but the yield will be back a bit, according to one expert.

Hay and grain merchant Alistair Hodnett, of Balmydoon, Dundee was speaking as he hopes to finish baling his own crop later this week, completing one of the easiest and earliest hay harvests in recent times due to the very dry weather.

His comments came after the James Hutton Institute at Invergowrie released the rainfall figures for June showing that only 29.1 mm had fallen in the month – 56 per cent of the long term average – making it the 12th driest June recorded in the past 70 years.

It also follows a belowaverage rainfall in May where only 76 per cent of the normal amount of rain fell.

In contrast, the hours of sunlight and average temperature recorded at JHI in June were well above average.

Last Thursday, JHI recorded a temperature of 26.7C, the highest June figure since 1982.

With the combination of high temperatures and low rainfall, Hodnett said he was pessimistic about there being much of a second hay crop later this summer. The result was a prediction that fodder supplies would again be very tight this winter.

“I expect a short market but this will be down to a completely different

0 Fine weather for hay-making but yield could be down set of reasons from last year where a wet summer madehaymakingdifficult,” he said.

Hodnett also predicted straw would be in short supply with many crops having been sown late and then grown quickly before heading out on very short straw stalks.

The only factor to change the short straw market might be if growers who normally chop straw after combining might be attracted by higher straw prices and put their straw on the market.

But “much will depend on the weather at grain harvest” he said.

Meanwhile, with the lack of rain is causing big soil moisture deficits, vegetable and potato growers are frantically trying to keep up with their irrigation demands.

Richard Haacker, production director with vegetable growing co-operative East of Scotland Growers in Cupar, commented that there was a lot of pressure but “we are just managing to keep up”.

The need to irrigate is pushing up costs for the growers, he said but so far there had been no lift in the price for the end product.

Haacker added that broccoli production – which is timetabled to last through the season – had not been affected as the recent hot weather had just compensated for the cold March and April.

So far, Sepa which regulates water abstraction for irrigation, has not limited the withdrawal of water from any watercourses.

Sepa officers will be touring parts of North-east and northern Scotland to provide advice on a series of straightforward steps for farmers and others to reduce their use of water. l My colleague Brian Henderson has his son back home from working in Australia where there has been a drought for the past 18 months. The young man’s reaction onseeing the still-green fields of Scotland: “Drought, what drought?”