Wheat for harvest 2025 gets planted but after 200mm of rain in September. it's not going to plan
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 8 ต.ค. 2024
- October is when we usually drill the winter wheat but we had 200mm of rain in September, which has caused major issues, as this video reveals..
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A few years ago my now 18 year old son would sit watching 'Harry's Farm' with me. I'm pleased to say he is now on a 2 year working break in Australia on a huge farm....and he's loving it.
Thanks Harry, I am not a farmer, or even related to a farmer, but I find your videos informative and very interesting. Thankyou very, very much.
I was having a conversation with one of my neighbours ten days ago he said he had planted some wheat and was thinking it might have been an expensive mistake. We also discussed your previous video on justifying keeping the combine. He said he had done that exercise but came unstuck this year as the window for harvest was small and his contractor could not get to him in time. He was rescued by another neighbour who lent him his combine.
Yet another interesting lesson for us non farmers. Thanks H.
Hi Harry. Very interesting. The more I watch Harrys Farm the more I realise why my parents abandoned farming in the 60's. hope the weather treats you to a break.
Thanks for the update Harry. Where we live on the Wiltshire/Hampshire border, I measured 208 mm in September.
The first 12 days gave 69 and the last 12 days delivered 139 mm. We had a fairly dry time the middle of the month. I've kept rainfall records since 1982, but I've never known such a wet September.
I'm up by basingstoke. 183mm and we have a chalk bed right under the clay. That dry week did absolutely nothing to dry the soil. Already the ground floods like it did at the END of winter in March when we have a heavy downfall. I can see this autumn/winter being an absolute nightmare.
It's not worth anything, but you farmers have my sympathy.
Great Harry thanks for update stay positive
Thanks Harry. I live my farming life through you're channel and it does make me want to be a farmer! so, good luck with the weather. And thanks again.
Also watch px farms and , it's a farming life for me, equally informative.
I love the honesty of your videos. Open book, show the receipts. Clarkson gets the glory, but I give you the kudos.
ALWAYS a great insight cheers Harry.
Still, it could be worse, we could have mandated a policy to take perfectly good farmland out of production, in order to grow non-food crops! Err, hang on a minute ... 🤨
Your delivery and engagement makes it interesting even for someone that knows nothing about it!
Time to start growing rice, Harry!💦🌾
Then you need ducks to clean the paddy, watched a livestock truck unloading ducks the other day, they were loaded in four floors. Thousands of em.
Joking aside, we may actually need to start thinking about changing what we grow and how we do it. If East Anglia does go under, let’s just accept it and grow rice. Maybe even have fish in there too!😮I really am joking there…..
It doesn’t matter what the cause of climate change is, the weather in the UK is different from what it was. That affects what we can grow. Scientists have shown it, Met people have shown it, farmers complain about it.
Can we look at asking farmers what they can best grow on their land and helping them do it with a suitable subsidy system? The market does that to an extent, but it generally forces farmers to grow one from a hard core of certain crops and put whole fields to that crop. Doesn’t help though when the weather is variable and the fields have patchy subtypes across them. What does Harry think would grow best on his land? Should we break up some fields a bit to take best advantages of the soil and water conditions across them?
It comes down to how can we help farmers grow stuff that will grow. Not forcing them to grow crops that are no longer best suited because that’s what the market demands. There are crops suitable for every soil type and every climate type. Maybe we should broaden our horizons on what we expect farmers to do.
I can’t help feeling half the problem is we expect farmers to grow a, b and c, when they may be better off growing x, y and z. It’s not a farming problem, it’s a consumer expectation and demand problem.
@@javelinXH992 farmers are being asked to grow different things, that's what this new scheme is all about.
@@javelinXH992 Yea i mean some places in estonia(!) have started to grow grapes for wine production. The climate estimate just a couple of years ago was 2050 the earliest it would be possible but here we are.
@@lksf9820 Yeah, I know, but I was thinking about types of food crops we haven’t traditionally grown. That includes ones we used to grow but have forgotten about.
As long as it is farmer and crop scientist led, rather than politician and activist led, then we may find something useful.
As they say, When life hands you lemons make lemonade.
Don’t think we can grow lemons though.
Love your tales on the Farm Harry, and for letting us back seat farmers tell you how to run your farm, I'm sure it must give you great amusement.
No farmers. No food.
except what we import....
@@IverKnackerov from farmers.
@@IverKnackerovDid he say just the U.K. ? But his point stands they are very important the world over and often bear the brunt of climate change and extreme weather patterns we seem to be seeing a lot more common. Harry plays dice on both sides understands how his farm is effected by change while driving a 1974 Lamborghini on road trips and long may both continue 😂
@@tims9434 Metcalfe is taking Government money NOT to produce arable crops in 2024/25 so that slogan only partially applies to him.
Grow your own backwards places
Thanks Harry.....very informative as usual
love the up dates an insight to farming is brilliant
Another very informative video harry hope your wheat crop gets established on the fields apart from that last 1 you described as a mess.maybe hold that 1 out for a spring barley crop in March like so many farmers have done due to last autumn's insane drilling conditions. All the best and look forward to your next post
Thanks for update, Harry. Good luck 👍🏻
Thanks Harry, farming brings something new every day.
Fantastic information as always.
Wishing you guys all the best.
We need a third channel - Harry's Trowel. 🙂
Here's hoping we get a bit more of a Spring & Summer next year, Harry. Spent the summer season in SW Ireland and I think I'm now amphibious!!!
Why, is he taking up bricklaying?
At least you have got some in. My heavy land is all pudding like. No chance, shortly, of getting it in. Waiting for the RPA to OK my herbal ley, fingers crossed.
What a washout this year. Up here in NW we had 200% of average over September. The local farm near here usually grows oil seed rape but I see they did maize this year and only harvested on last day of September. The weather in Europe has been even worse - just seen more catastrophic floods in the Balkans. Doesn't bode well for food prices.
I hope the weather gets better Harry,
Maybe grow rice!!
Bedfordshire had not just the wettest September on record, but the highest rainfall of any month on record !!
I enjoy these videos, informative and interesting for a townie surrounded by farm land.
We are the opposite here for rainfall Harry here in Wisconsin, last rain we had was ten days ago but only 1/4 inch, no rain in the forecast either, normally wet by now!
In central Texas, we got a rain 2 weeks ago and that was the first in two months. No rain in the future. Waiting to plant.
Ny is a bit damp. Not causing a problem yet
Another great video has always harry mrs m and Charlie 👍
The closest I get to this is just gardening and I mean my garden looks like something out gardeners world it’s stunning. When I started out it was a huge learning curve, hit and miss but now down to a fine art where I know what I’m doing month by month and what I want done say by end of October putting in my bulbs for next spring. I would hope Charlie and Harry sit in December drink in hand happy f the work done for next year. I’m the same I love my garden but enjoy putting into winter mode o leave till March because all the good work and prep was done in October.
Not a great advert for a contractor with that particular type of drill... I admire your combine harvester independence, your contract sprayer is good, but perhaps master of your own drill type and timing may well be worth a thought.
I well remember a Cotswold grain farmer from 40 plus years back... Boys land; Winter Barley... drilled pretty early... His clay land Winter Wheat..continuous... Yes, in those days we could burn the stuble...
Sadly today farming is turning into a rich man's hobby... and l suspect the Labour government quess that too.
No surprises for guessing my farming days are but a memory.
All that said; a very informative and candid report as ever, thank you Harry.
Lovely again.
I repeat the AG Street book again.
71mm for us in the northeast of Ireland 50mm of fell in one day Thursday 26th we were in or close to a grass drought ground conditions even after 50mm are very good but it has been cold, cold all year only odd days that were warm no hot days worth talking about.
I'm a bit surprised too by the deluge of rainfall in Harry's charts. (200mm). I'm in South of Ireland and according to the meteorological service: September 2024 was the second driest month of the year so far - behind June - and the 14th driest September since 1941. Provisional gridded rainfall data suggests September 2024 averaged at 63.6 mm compared to the rainfall amount for June 2024 - 20.8 mm.
Fascinating and insightful as always. Disgraceful that our governments past and present pursue policies that drive ever-growing imports at such a scale and shameful that such perspective seems absent from mainstream media. Environmental responsibility is very important, but there's not much less responsible than shipping food half way around the world having been grown and transported with who knows what level of environmental disregard and consequence.
I could watch Harry talk about farming for an hour a day. I hope the minority of disrespectful comments don't dishearten - it's fine to disagree and question, but there's no need to be a dick about it. What's in Harry's bank account is irrelevant - the farm is not a charity, it needs to pay its way and he is transparent about both the very marginal nature of farming as a stand-alone business and the impact of issues and policy on the wider farming community.
The thing that most consistently strikes me is how bloody stressful it must be to be a farmer who relies solely on farming to support their family these days - it boggles my mind that we've arrived at a place where an occupation so fundamental to life in this country has become almost unviable at a personal level. If I was a conspiracy theorist I'd think the people setting policy are motivated to make farming a purely corporate enterprise... Good thing I'm not... 🙂
Your lucky we still have 500 acres of spring beans to combine in South Northants!
What are they looking like Sam ?
@@justinquinn5780 they are a very good crop and are still ok atm. But the combine gets bunged up unloading them!
Great update. Have you considered putting down some gypsum for the worst clay field?
Yep; 1/2 kg per sq metre..
The crazy thing about OSR is that it is a crop we can easily grow but we've placed regulations on it which render it ungrowable! Its hard enough fighting the weather, but to tie a hand behind our backs at the same time is just bonkers!
Would be interesting to see an explanation of the geology that creates diverse soil types alongside each other.
no sun, and no bl00dy Stanley!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
He should come to Devon and see the different soil types,medium loam in field culm measures solid yellow or blue clay with 8 inch of peat the other side of the hedge only suitable for grass! Or sandy red soil only a field apart.
SO ! We need to Import Millions of tons of stuff that we used to grow ourselves ! Crazy !
Where's it going to come from ? Not from Ukraine or Russia that's for certain !
Europe will be desperately trying to feed itself !
Do we NOT have any knowlegeable Farmer / Scientists in the Government any more ?
Don't get me wrong, I LOVE the countryside, I thought that was what the hedgerows were for , to keep all the small animals in a place where we could keep an EYE on them ?
Best of LUCK to you Harry !
Stay DRY !
Stu xx
Why don’t you think stuff will come from Ukraine?
@@MIEJ4 Because they're trying to get it out to the Middle East, and Russia has just destroyed another grain carrier ! Russia has obviously stopped it's grain deal agreement with Ukraine !
Hopefully any more grain carriers from Ukraine, will stick to NATO territorial waters !
Stu xx
Harry, as a civil engineer, all I want to do watching your videos is suggest drains to add! LOL. I'm sure it's not nearly that easy, but is there any way to add drainage to a few key spots that seem to always get flooded on your farm?
I might be wrong but the issue is the clay. Drains might keep the clay a bit less wet but it’ll still be clay. The question is what can I grow on clay?
Land drainage isn't very effective in clay soil soils, due to capillarity. Gravity is insufficient to remove the water from the capillary suction of the micro-pores in clay soil. Try holding a wet clump of clay soil in the air, it stays wet the same as clay soil around a land drain.
Mole drainage would help drain surface water away a lot quicker allowing top soil to soon dry out.
@@grahamkelland mole drainage is a form of land drainage. For surface drainage you'd need perforated pipe in a trench with a gravel backfill to the surface. Typically this would be augmented with mole-lines perpendicular to the drains. All very expensive, with absolutely no return on the investment.
@@gileswardle76 you can mole drain into field side ditches and sleave the out falls a short distance, very cost effective way draining surface water for a few years. I suggest you refer to Andrew Ward's videos where he explains in detail.
We have 2 roughly 10 acre fields split by a hedge. One side is is heavy clay like most of the farm and you step over to the other side and it's immediately the rockiest ground you've ever seen. It's been in arable rotation for years as we've always battled the rocks, buts it's name is sanfoin close which would suggest it was historically a meadow, so last year I turned it back to grass!
PX farms is another good TH-cam channel.
My home farm was on lime stone brash , and the local farmers would say it needed a shower of rain every day , and a shower of s--t on Sundays . And that was just about right .🤔🙂
Always interesting , shame not more often like Harry Garage
Great video. I know that you can control slugs in a garden by putting bran down - it desiccates slugs from the inside and kills them. An organic solution and a material that absorbs rainwater also. Would this work on a farm I wonder?
Is commercial hemp a viable option Harry ? Fields of the stuff in Tarragona.
I thoroughly enjoy these update even being a tech but farming is the UK lifeline that has poor coverage (aka countryside on BBC etc is useless). Maybe with these weather patterns we will have to grow rice!
I've only ever served beer to young farmers, so have no experience of farming. But I've noticed in my own garden how slow the raspberries were to ripen that they were rotten before being ready, and yield was low too. That's in Ayrshire, west central Scotland. It looked to me that farmers weren't able to do much silage either (a lot of farms are cattle around here). I get the impression that it's not been a good year, which makes the previous government's policies look even more daft. We need food security and we need to ensure that farming pays.
Ayrshire is part of the lowland south of Scotland..
@@petesmitt Many descriptions are used, but lowland is only typically used when considering whisky. Central for the populated strip through Scotland, and west would include Ayrshire. Ayrshire does stretch quite southern. Therefore, my use of west central Scotland is accurate. It should be - I live there.
@@johnsim3722 I have family from Irvine; any further south than Ayrshire and you are in the borderlands..
@@petesmitt You could ask them if they consider themselves to live in the west of Scotland or the south of Scotland.
@@johnsim3722 South west; their forebears used to do border raids across into England..
Damn.. Just watched the weather forcast. Will kirk hit your farm? Looks grim.. We will get it here in the middle of Norway. Bummer
Informative as always although do the slug pellets have any effect on the wildlife that eat the dead slugs?
Somewhat concerning if they do
The weather is pretty terrible here and according to the forecast it’s going to get substantially colder for the rest of the week 🥶🏴👍🏻
Bottom Folly might be better in grass. There was much good in mixed farming with smaller fields.
Definitely
Thanks Harry. What with a trip to Lamborghini on Sunday and a Farm today - what a start to the week!!
I really feel for all our farmers, but chin up Harry - as soon as the weather perks up I'm sure our politicians will conjure up some new nonsense to screw up our food supply even further....!
HAARP will do that for them.
If this rain carries on, that garage might start looking emptier! eek
Harry's Marina.⛵👀
I don't think the farm is his main source of income so the cars are safe
Being English and from farming stock, I know what 200mm of rain can do to a farm crop. But now after 26 years in Australia I see 200mm of rain in a month and think, is that all. We can get 200mm in half an hour. Some places get that day in day out for weeks. But they aren't growing wheat.
You can’t beat the plough
I’m guessing but, back in the day would previous farmers have planted different crops in the heavier soils, I’m thinking of root crops?
Lovely Fendt
@1:14 that map explains a lot! I've been thinking it's been really mild and dry recently but I'm in Striing not Swindon :D
I really like Harrys' , ' Harry's Farm ' .
Thanks.
Is it at all possible to use nematodes to control slugs at this scale? I had literally thousands of slugs in my garden this year, if you went out at night, you could point the torch anywhere and you'd see a slug. One treatment with Nemaslug and 10 days later, they were all gone, and from the on I saw only a handful. I was blown away. I imagine it's uneconomical on a farm though.
Crazy what the governments are doing to us and the farmers. Just bonkers.
It's just one method of population control, weather patterns can be controlled too, all that is required is financial incentive, and people will do incredible things to their neighbours. Delve into situations like the Lynmouth flood disaster in the 1950's, it was no accident, it was an experiment. More recently Boscastle is highly suspect, occuring 50 years to the day after Lynmouth,but at least there was no human loss, as there was in Lynmouth,which was known as Operation Cumulus,and a government operation, all those years ago, so ruining crops is a simple matter today, and suits WEF policy of population control, and eating bugs. Perhaps Harry should ignore the crop and concentrate on growing the slugs.
hi harry, enjoy your in-depth look at farming, your wet fields have they got land drains, or is it possible to mole plough the land.
Harry needs to be advising this shower of a government
Seems to me the rows are set for the longer stretch of the fields regardless of the slope of the fields. If rows were set for drainage of gravity feed would the water not better shed off the fields to the green field dividers thereby drying quicker?
When was the last time you put manure on your fields .
Good point when I was at ag college 53 years ago the philosophy was that farms should be mixed livestock tillage.they also taught you couldn't house sheep!
"Summer" is over. Endless rain until April, again.
Hi Harry, have you ever looked at growing beans for baked beans in the future.
I live close to a proposed massive solar farm, which are taking over much of the countryside in my area.
Shame i can't send you pictures of Wheat crops looking like here in NSW Australia in my area, cracking looking crops with full heads.
Would old school ploughing and cultivating help in these difficult conditions? Just wondering if less till/no till makes it harder than it needs to be?
Are you going to rent more fields to make use of your combine as you have taken so many acres out of action?
Farming can be unpredictable, especially with weather like that! It’s tough when so much rain throws off the planting schedule, but it’s amazing to see the resilience and determination in getting the wheat in for 2025. Hoping for better conditions ahead!
Last Tuesday (I think it was), when it rained constantly all day, I placed a straight walled jar out at 9:00am.
At 8:00pm, it had collected 42mm of rain water.
Given that it was raining hardest earlier in the day, (From 4:00am), there could easily have been 50-60mm between 4:00am and 8:00pm.
I find clay hard to germinate but grow extremely well once germination starts
Clay has the most nutrients; it just needs to be made friable for plant roots to not get waterlogged.
Harry, is it not worth trying the change the composition of the soil in your worst fields ?
would a different type of drill be any better in soggy conditions.........back in the old days seed corn was broadcast on the surface with a fertiliser spreader and harrowed in. something you haven't mentioned is part of the reason the drill clogged up was all the straw you chopped is on the surface and that was some of the reason the drill clogged up
What the story on the glysophate alternatives? Are they the same chemical family? Something entirely new? Any safety studies, concerns?
Lots of American farmers use "Drainage Tile" on farms i.e. Underground drainage. Any reason we dont use this in the UK? or do we? i haven't seen it as yet (Not a farmer just watch you tube vids)
Hi Harry, could you do an episode on Glyphosate. There is some bad media around about it.
Here in Cumbria all the farmers have ploughed their fields and got their crops sown and growing very well indeed
Sshh! dont tell the Government, or they will be conducting 'cloud seeding' experiments over Cumbria.
Do you ever do gypsum treatment for the clay soils?
You could do a whole video on your field names !!
Hi Harry, what sort of pre emergence spray will you apply?
I’ve been lucky with rain fall on the Kent coast & the sea breeze is keeping things dry on top, but moist underneath.
My main problem has been spray windows with the wind.
I’ve drilled some hybrid barley at a good 35-45mm to keep the pre-em away from the seed (Reliance)
The weather is the one thing we have no control over and it can make or break a farmers year.
No control over? 😂
No farmers no food .. the government needs to listen to the farmers and stop interfering.
It seems to be farmers but no food. I haven't seen anything grown for human consumption.
I am amazed the UK could grow 19 million tonnes of wheat, Australia only grows 25 million tonnes and Canada 30 million tonnes. UK has great soils, problem is so does the old Eastern block.
UK generally grows soft wheat, so not suitable for bread.
@@petesmitt and Australia grows?
It seems like the deja vu feeling with the weather is becoming a more regular occurrence. We've had it too here in Yorkshire, maybe not quite as bad and an annoying inconvenience for most of us but a much higher stress level for the farmers.
Apart from the supply dangers of relying on imported food crops and the additional cost, what about the carbon footprint of doing so when we're constantly being reminded of the need to reduce it with £zillions being set aside for clean power generation and the decarbonisation of transport? I just don't get it.
With repeated, predictable drainage issues, would installing drainage be profitable?
Have you tried growing rice yet?
I noticed last week OSR in flower? Is that late planted? And why?
Could be mustard rather than OSR. Mustard is used as a cover crop or is part of the bee and wild bird seed mixes that some farmers in this year
Dream job being a farmer but doesn’t seem to be any easy way in these days , wish the government would support farms
😂
Terrible idea. Free market would be better
Why has the oil seed production gone down that much?
I'm sure there is a way to manage the bogged areas past leaving it to nature?
The government pays for any agreed acreage set aside for environmental and nature conservation. They are 'encouraging' (aka bribing, aka strong-arming) farmers to make half of their land support nature, i.e. birdseed, insect (bees, butterflies etc) friendly plants and fallow ground. Most farmers like Harry have tried to ensure that the least productive areas of their land are included in the 'set-aside'.
Farming videos seem to be attracting the weather conspiracy theorists at the moment so, for their benefit: please remember that 🎵"The rain it raineth every day" [Shakespeare] dates back to 1601.
Britain's weather was 'changeable' long before Stonehenge appeared 5,000 years ago. You can tell the weather was lousy back then by the guttering the ancients fitted to the stones (it bears the mysterious runes 'Marley Flo-plast uPVC Hi-Cap Deep-U section), so please, peeps, keep calm and carry on. The sky's not falling. The world's not ending. It's just Britain being Britain. It's always been wet and miserable.
If 🎵"there's a hole in your head where the rain comes in", buy a hat.
[Jeff Lynne, 1975. Hey nonny, nonny no...]
Open your eyes 🐑
@@EleanorPeterson
That was back when we had a magnetic field to protect us.
It’s not just happening here, it’s galactic.
Ah yes, ‘keep calm and carry on’, ‘have faith in the powers that be’ etc, etc.
If the wool hasn’t been pulled from your eyes by now there’s no hope for you, I’m afraid.
@@OldskoolCatflap no doubt they’ve had the harmful armful too, like the good citizen that they are.
@EleanorPeterson operation Popeye is just a conspiracy from around that time too huh 👀
Shame there is not a seeder unit that has a Plow built Ahead of the seeding part so the plow blades cut the ground and start to fold the sod over and the seeding unit drops the seeds in the cut ground then the sod folds on top of the seeds burying it under the soil maybe even have a smooth heavy roller system behind the seeder to compress the ground down after the seeding unit.
So the plow cuts the fallow then the seeds drop into that cut area then the soil drops over the seed then the smooth roller makes sure the ground is pressed down on the seed!
Even clay soil would allow that action. As for the water being too much on the ground that is a drainage problem as too much trying to drain away in clay.
Maybe drill field long drainage channels under the max depth of any field works of doing crops so the drainage is not damaged.
There could be a drain pipe set up there with holes drilled in the top part to let in the excess water so it can drain it away from the field above?
I've another farm that does mole drilling where the tractor pulls a cutting disc and blade through the soil with a hard sloped and chained unit on the back which makes a channel through the soil bu compacting the soil to form a tunnel about 5 inches wide so the excess water from the cray soil can flow away.
The blade and cutting disc make a slot in the cray soil for the water to enter the tunnel and let the water drain off the field. That could help here?
You only plant wheat 1" to 11/2" deep, you can just direct drill it in. The reason for working the surface earlier is to bring any weed seeds to the surface so when they start to grow you can kill them before putting in the seed. Ploughing has a completely different function, we only plough every five to seven years.
The plough would bury the seed to deep. The function of a plough is, burying the seeds of weeds.
Can you switch to a different crop that works for your clay type , wet land?
I’d love to see more focus on livestock than grains.
Other farming channels are available. Crawfords Farm is more mixed with arable and cattle.
@jimw6659 I’d love to see more focus on cookery, particularly different types of pans.
More so than grains and livestock
Livestock is labour intensive, that is always going to be difficult in a high wage country that doesn't like immigrants.
@@tom4412😅