Hay Making 2021

som farmer

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
somerset
On todays therapy session; still turning hay that has been down a week now, rightly or wrongly more mowed yesterday. One plus we baled, hauled and stacked just over a thousand little bales on Saturday. Does this count as a 'wet' year or just extremely inconvenient and frustrating.
lying barstewards got it wrong again, dry forecast, no rain about, peed it down yesterday, wrappers in tomorrow, or weds, got 30 acres of quality grass/clover to wrap anyway, so now another 14 acres, of not so quality stuff.
Barley to cut, and then that straw, bugger the hay !
 
lying barstewards got it wrong again, dry forecast, no rain about, peed it down yesterday, wrappers in tomorrow, or weds, got 30 acres of quality grass/clover to wrap anyway, so now another 14 acres, of not so quality stuff.
Barley to cut, and then that straw, bugger the hay !
My gut said last week wasn’t going to be for us haymaking. Dry forecast but it rained everyday of some description
 

robs1

Member
Cut some thick second cut thursday as a dry week promised, had half hour heavy rain yesterday and no sun today, now rain forecast for wed then friday the monday and Tuesday wouldnt trust the ,bloody forecasters to tell me what day of the week it was
 

Pan mixer

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Near Colchester
I think that Carol apologised for the faulty forecast for this week this morning on the beeb.

Last Wednesday - dry forecast for the foreseeable, surely there must be a drought soon, I thought. Mowed for England.

Nearly ready yesterday.

drizzled 4 times today....

A neighbour said that the weather was just like 1958, I am not old enough to remember that year. They were combining in January.
 

som farmer

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
somerset
I think that Carol apologised for the faulty forecast for this week this morning on the beeb.

Last Wednesday - dry forecast for the foreseeable, surely there must be a drought soon, I thought. Mowed for England.

Nearly ready yesterday.

drizzled 4 times today....

A neighbour said that the weather was just like 1958, I am not old enough to remember that year. They were combining in January.
l have baled wheat straw x2 in feb, perfectly dry. One lot, had to give up on, made a bale, netted, released, and middles fell out, a belt baler made perfect bales, 2nd lot, perfect with our roller claas. Uncle reckoned he had baled after xmas before. Have combined end nov, once, disaster.
 

Stw88

Member
Location
Northumberland
It’s amazing how different the weather can be in such a small country. were up on the Cumbrian/ Northumberland border and have had a fantastic summer. We have had just over 150mm of rain since the beginning of April, normally we have that in a month! Never made as much Hay and the silage we made is practically wrapped hay. I know what it’s like struggling to make Hay in crap weather as normally that is us every year!!
 

GmB

Member
Location
S.Glos
Coming up the M5 from Clevedon yesterday, lots of people going for hay by the looks of it,who can blame them with the forecast we were given, steady rain now so what didn’t get baled will be a mess/hard work. One farmer had the small baler going, hope he hauled it straight away
 
I baled 15 acres of round bales yesterday after several wrong forecasts, but left the last 10 rows to do a trailer load of small bales today. Now it's raining steadily . It would have only needed another hour today, but at least the rest is baled. I think that will be it for hay this year.
 

Goweresque

Member
Location
North Wilts
A neighbour said that the weather was just like 1958

1956-58 were all terribly wet summers, as was 1954. Though weirdly 1955 was a scorcher, drier than 2018. If its any consolation within just a few years there had been a step change in UK weather and there followed a 40 year period (1960-2000 roughly speaking) of far drier summers, the period most of us grew up in, when summer was summer and by August everything was brown and the ground cracking open.

This is the trouble with all the current hoo-hah with 'climate change', the fact is that things have been just as bad (or good) in the past, but most people can't remember back that far, so when told the current weather is 'unprecedented' believe what they are told.
 

Ali_Maxxum

Member
Location
Chepstow, Wales
1,154 little ones baled yesterday, not the best, but certainly not the worst. 254 in and stacked, 900 for customer to get in and they didn't want to pay us to do it. 1% chance of rain on BBC, less than 5% chance on the Met, nothing on Google. 2.8mm we've had. Couldn't make it up. We would have had the lot in and stacked if they'd got us to do it, 25-30p a bale extra.

Had 11ac of our own that would have gone today, it's been rained on 4 or 5 times now, not much, but fearful it might make it dusty now....
 
1,154 little ones baled yesterday, not the best, but certainly not the worst. 254 in and stacked, 900 for customer to get in and they didn't want to pay us to do it. 1% chance of rain on BBC, less than 5% chance on the Met, nothing on Google. 2.8mm we've had. Couldn't make it up. We would have had the lot in and stacked if they'd got us to do it, 25-30p a bale extra.

Had 11ac of our own that would have gone today, it's been rained on 4 or 5 times now, not much, but fearful it might make it dusty now....
That customer must be crazy especially with the weather how it is
 

Ali_Maxxum

Member
Location
Chepstow, Wales
That customer must be crazy especially with the weather how it is
Trouble is it's a new customer, they always want a 'price' which I hate doing, so naturally I always over cook it as I've cocked up before and fallen short, gave a rough ball park figure and then said X to haul and stack. Nope, didn't want it. For the amount that was there though like I said 25p per bale extra would have had them all in the same day. I dread to think how long it's going to take with an old DB890 and 10x6 old wooden bale trailer being loaded by hand....
 

ffukedfarmer

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
West Kent
I was hoping to bale some this afternoon but can’t see that happening now. We’ve not had much rain this morning but just enough I feel without seeing any sun to not bale.
I’ve got just under half the bales in the barn I should have so far and I’m getting somewhat concerned about getting the other half now. As we’re becoming accustom to, next week isn’t looking as good as originally forecast.
 

som farmer

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
somerset
old age makes me forget why we stopped hay, and made silage, youthful dreams make things seem better, than what they actually were. These days, the best hay is what arrives on a lorry, and is probably cheaper, and no crappy stuff. Short of grub, we have fed a lot of hay, to the dairy, last winter/summer and winter before that. It's actually been quite cost effective, the results suprised us, hence hay making again, to continue feeding some, best we have this summer ............ arrived on a lorry !!!
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 76 43.7%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 62 35.6%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 27 15.5%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.7%
  • 75-100%

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

    Votes: 3 1.7%

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

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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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