How was the winter barley harvest, I hear you ask. In one word, disappointing and in two words, very disappointing.

Huge 25-foot swarths of straw (12 dense round bales to the acre) but the grain was too light and while I don’t yet have a final average yield figure, my best estimate is around 3.5t/ac at probably 13.5% moisture.

So what went wrong? Frankly, I don’t know but we’ve seen it all before. Crops appeared to have massive potential in that the establishment was textbook at 100% and spring fertiliser was very timely.

Disease and weed control were excellent and I thought we had perfect crops in the perfect growing season (for winter barley). In short, crops had seemingly everything going for them yet were failing to deliver.

I think we’ve all been there and seen that.

Grain fill

But grain fill was obviously very poor, with bushel weights well under 60KPH and it was all with a two row, BYDV tolerant variety, which I won’t name.

This could be very unfair as this variety may have done the finest for other growers who don’t have the podium that I do.

However, as most of you will recall, winter barley is not my favourite crop and whether it’s me or our soil, we don’t get on very well.

I wouldn’t mind but we rushed back from a post-wedding detox in Valentia, Co Kerry to get cracking in the 29°C temperatures before the predicted thunderstorms of last Sunday evening.

Combines were moving around Monasterevin and Rathangan as I returned (with Mrs P on the Thursday evening) but there were still plenty of fields untouched.

It was good to be back in the cool combine cab with the waiting over, though I had to keep a ready eye on the engine temperature as the Mercedes engine in the Claas 670 can get hot.

In our last 670 it was a Cat engine which always ran as cool as a cucumber.

But overheating in this current combine is such an issue that I can’t chop straw in temperatures much over 25°C. Overheating engines in such conditions are a design flaw.

Awkward

And speaking of inconveniences, why is it if you have to break a section on the combine knife it’s usually the most awkward one under the drive end? Anyhow, we were finished by Sunday afternoon and most of the straw is baled.

Oats are next, maybe at end of this week.

So do I expect the wheat to disappoint too? Obviously, I’m less excited about prospects than I have been and true to my fears, fusarium has appeared in early sown Champion which, in truth, doesn’t surprise as it hit a bad fortnight of frequent rain for flowering.

So that’s my harvest report to date but I’m also aware that I have a few, but very important, female readers who will say, never mind the flippin’ harvest, how did the wedding go?

Well, it went really well and the weather was perfect. A couple of days beforehand, I was anxious as it was in an African-style tent with precious little side protection, should it have been wet and windy.

While in our tradition we wouldn’t put out a Child of Prague but I’m told there were those who did and bingo, we got a fine day which was brilliant.

My daughter and her now husband put a huge amount of work into the event and I was delighted for them that it ran so smoothly with a live band and the Guinness flowing.

In my speech, amongst other things, I told the guests how tight I was and methinks I may have to become even tighter after this harvest, what with low yields and dismally low prices.