Held up by cranky combines and Ninja showers
WELL, it has been an interesting harvest, with the stop/start nature having too much emphasis on the stop for my liking.
While a good deal of the harvest might be close to being completed in the drier eastern side of the country, the patchy weather has meant many central and western parts still have a way to go.
In our area, when it hasn’t actually been raining we’ve been plagued by those nasty ninja showers which can come out of nowhere and cancel out a whole day’s worth of drying sun and wind in a 10-minute downpour.
What has made the slow harvest more frustrating, is the fact that the crops which have been gathered in so far have been doing quite well – often against expectations from earlier in the year – but the wet is now starting to spoil them.
While my son, who farms in Australia, laughed out loud when I described the dry spell we had back in April/May as a drought, it did hold the crops back a bit after sowing.
However, as I’ve heard many fatalistic farmers say recently: “Aye, I said at the time we’d pay for it later” there’s been no shortage of rain for the rest of the season.
The damp and fairly warm summer probably accounted for the crops catching up –but with all the soakings and dryings, the straw has suffered.
It’s been brittle when going through the combine – and if it gets wet in the period after the crop has been cut and needs to be turned, there’s sometimes not a lot left for the baler when it dries out.
The straw seems to have been a bit weaker before the crops are cut, too – and the rain and winds have meant that a deal of the barley has brack led (folded over about half way down) while some of the wheat has fallen over completely and the oats have the air of drunk men, leaning on one another for support while looking like they could fall flat at any moment.
This means it’s necessary to cut the crop as low and close to the ground as possible in an attempt to pick it up – and so it wasn’t the best time for the electronics which automatically control the height at which the combine cuts to pack in.
But while I was happy to indulge in a bit of old-school, seat-of-the-pants combining, my son eventually convinced me to get it repaired. Involving electronics, it wasn’t a simple job though – but I think the engineer eventually got there.
All we need now is some dry weather to test it out!