All things Dairy

yellowRock

Member
Livestock Farmer
Lifting the last load of first cut earlier this evening. First time using the Strautmann wagon, it's been a steep learning curve but happy with it overall once I got the hang of it and we sorted out a few issues.
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Our old self propelled harvester which we sold, to a buyer in Zimbabwe of all places!

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Location
Cornwall

yellowRock

Member
Livestock Farmer
What made you change?

We used to be in a family partnership with my dad's brothers. 4 farms, 1000+ acres. This business is in the final stages of winding up after a split, and the Claas was leftover from that.

We briefly considered buying it from the other parties but it would have been hard to justify the expense, not to mention fuel/running costs/service etc.

We used it last year for silage after the split and also found it a struggle to find the men required for spfh, tractors and trailers.
 

yellowRock

Member
Livestock Farmer
How did you get on with a small tractor on the front?

Wasn't too bad, the only place I had a bit of a struggle was one field with a steep hill. I just worked it so that I was getting the wagon full going down the steeper parts.

Obviously an extra 50-100hp and a few tons of extra weight with a bigger tractor would make a difference but we managed ok.

Both the wagon tractor and the one on buckrake are chipped to 180hp
 

crashbox

Member
Livestock Farmer
Seeing those photos of silage going in, how much fert have people banged on for 2nd cut?

Struggling with figures here...

RB209 suggests for an extra 2t DM/ha you need 50kgN/ha, or 200kg/ha of 25% AN.
@ £650/t that is £130, or £65 per extra tonne DM. Plus application, harvest costs, etc. Is it worth it?
 
Location
West Wales
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1st cut produced some pretty chunky rows

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With harvesting having to be supervised by Wallace the water buffalo, gromit was less impressed and decided to leg it back inside
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feast - they’d finished their paddock a lot earlier than I expected, the fences in there weren’t the best and with a neighbours lawn awaiting a remodel after the last escape and me needing to be on the sprayer about 2 hours ago a quick fix was send them into some seriously long covers. An ex Angelesy girl @Bald Rick looking rather smug wither herself
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Into famine, they hadn’t quite finished a paddock off yesterday so I sent them back much to their disgust….. must remember to lock them out as soon as I finish milking not after they all appear on the yard again
 
Location
West Wales
Seeing those photos of silage going in, how much fert have people banged on for 2nd cut?

Struggling with figures here...

RB209 suggests for an extra 2t DM/ha you need 50kgN/ha, or 200kg/ha of 25% AN.
@ £650/t that is £130, or £65 per extra tonne DM. Plus application, harvest costs, etc. Is it worth it?

reduced rate, add humic acid and slurry bug treated slurry
 

som farmer

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
somerset
Seeing those photos of silage going in, how much fert have people banged on for 2nd cut?

Struggling with figures here...

RB209 suggests for an extra 2t DM/ha you need 50kgN/ha, or 200kg/ha of 25% AN.
@ £650/t that is £130, or £65 per extra tonne DM. Plus application, harvest costs, etc. Is it worth it?
30 units + slurry, but a bit understocked, so doing well on the winter grub, will make as much as we can, in case of a bad next year.
But, how little can we get away with ? The answer to that, is we don't really know. The experts tell us, clover will give x amount, this may be the year, we find out what it does do.
certainly here, its one of the grassiest springs l can remember here, and with half the normal fert, love it to be related, but not sure it is.
Poland and Lithuania, from where a lot of fert originates from there, have both said, under no circumstances, regardless of self harm, will they import Russian gas, so that is a major loss of supply, and that can only reduce supply, and keep cost high. The 15,000 tons of N, on offer, last week, was all sold within hours, and only 2 firms had it.
Unless somebody gets rid of putrid pretty quickly, high fert costs will be a high priced input. There again, we don't know who would take over, when putrid leaves power, by whatever way that happens. They could well be of the same mindset, after all, he has surrounded himself, with cronies of his, they would be the ones in the race to replace him. An army coup is noi on the cards, putrid has 'cleansed' a lot of top brass, and they are no longer so strong, as they were, in fact, they have looked pretty awful.

That's the bad bit, for farmers, less production, means higher prices, so some clouds, might have a silver lining. But those shortages, are going to cause a lot of distress around the world, many people will starve, even in the UK, rising food costs, are going to cause huge problems, and we, are meant to be, an affluent country.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 77 43.5%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 62 35.0%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 28 15.8%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.7%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.7%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 4 2.3%

Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

  • 1,285
  • 1
As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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