We had a productive week of harvest – sitting at 12% overall with 68% of our Legacy Barley and 67% of our Synergy Barley off. The rest of the barley is mature enough to be harvested and put through the dryer – but we have been battling the weather. Had another 15-20mm across the farm last week, with our August totals now eclipsing the rest of the growing season added up on the north part of the farm.
Yields have been decent – especially considering the amount of rain we had. The earlier harvest barley came off with good quality, we are waiting for analysis on the more recent barley we are on now. It doesn’t take much rain to downgrade the barley from malt to feed – especially when you have showers and mist that last 24-36 hours. These varieties are bred specifically for malt purposes and one of the attributes is to germinate quickly and evenly for the start of the malt process. The problem with that is if you have mature seeds still in the field with prolonged rain events, the process starts while it is in the field.
Everyone is getting into the swing of harvest and developing patterns and getting their rhythm going. Hopefully we can get some prolonged periods so we can get some acres off.
This next week looks to be possibly wet early on – with the remnants of Hurricane Hillary coming up the West California Coast and possibly reaching as far as NE Saskatchewan as it falls apart once it hits land. Depending on the path it takes we could see showers or heavy rainfall….we will update next week on how we made out.
