We were down most of last week – ended up with between 12-20mm across the farm at the start of last week. Thankfully the bigger amounts of rain stayed south. The weather was cool and cloudy as well which limited the drying – plus most mornings we had thick fog.
We managed to get back in the field again on Saturday, and Sunday we finished the barley. Today we started up in the wheat down south.
Thankfully we had most of our barley off before this last rain event – the quality declined drastically with the chitted (pre-germination) as high as 40% in one field.
The 5 day delay allowed us to shuttle some more grain around and catch up on any service / maintenance work that we had been putting off.
Yield in the first wheat is coming off not too bad – although this is where we did have more rain through the growing season. Quality will be important – there are signs of minor levels of sprouting. Once the wheat kernel starts to sprout it looses milling quality. We get a private lab to do what’s called a Falling Number test. They grind up a sample of wheat and drop it into solution. They time how long it takes to settle to the bottom. The longer it takes to settle – the higher the falling number.
This next week looks favorable – sunny and warmer at the start with cooler weather coming later in the week. There is a chance of rain later this week but it doesn’t look like anything major.
