Maize Mess Madness

Boysground

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Wiltshire
Farmer next door to me has already harvested his maze last month so why are other doing it now? Just curious

I cut our earlier variety 3 weeks ago, the cob was fit but the stem was a little too green. The other 2 3rds of the crop was not yet fit. You have to remember that maize is basically a tropical plant, we are not growing it in ideal conditions. It needs heat units to ripen and there can be quite a difference between varieties the weather has a massive impact on this.

I grow maize on my own land and also use 3 or 4 neighbours fields, the system works well those that grow it for me like it as it pays well and gives an alternative profitable break crop and opportunity for some black grass control. One of my growers ploughed up hundreds of acres of OSR last year because of flea beetle so I am not surprised that he wants to grow more maize.

A wet harvest is the biggest issue although most of the soil is chalk so it drys very quickly. with the farm alongside a very busy road we have to be very careful with mud, there have been prosecutions in the area because of mud. I had a new bucket brush arrive yesterday so that we are able to clean up better during harvest, we always have a loader ready to clean the road if its wet. A few more dry days and we will be back on and hopefully not too muddy.

Just so you know all the maize is for a dairy, with a fully housed herd we need over 3000 tons of maize a year.

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Brisel

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Midlands
What, so we can grow more wheat and further depress prices. We should be happy for alternative uses for land and crops. How much OSR isn’t used for food?

Quite a lot goes into biodiesel. The amount varies each year. Used cooking oil is the main source of biodiesel, so a food use then fuel.
838592

How about a nice crop of oats for horses? That was the original biofuel
 

7610 super q

Never Forgotten
Honorary Member
Well, the fact remains, there's 1000's of acres more grown than there used to be. That means more mud on the roads, and peeved members of the public. Spuds and beet have been brought up on this thread, I'd say the area grown of these crops has remained static, if not fallen. 50 years ago 10,000 acres of spuds were grown in Pembrokeshire, all earlies, job done and dusted by July. Now the area has shifted to maincrop.....along with harvesting in mud in October. And while we're at it, small scale growers planted in a fortnight, and ditto harvesting. Now it's in the hands of big growers who take months to plant huge acreages, which means late harvests waiting for skins to set.....
Modern farming really is pants. Just because it's all done from aircon tractors with twin beacons doesn't make it right.

Nice rant there @7610 super q :cool::D
 

DRC

Member
Well, the fact remains, there's 1000's of acres more grown than there used to be. That means more mud on the roads, and peeved members of the public. Spuds and beet have been brought up on this thread, I'd say the area grown of these crops has remained static, if not fallen. 50 years ago 10,000 acres of spuds were grown in Pembrokeshire, all earlies, job done and dusted by July. Now the area has shifted to maincrop.....along with harvesting in mud in October. And while we're at it, small scale growers planted in a fortnight, and ditto harvesting. Now it's in the hands of big growers who take months to plant huge acreages, which means late harvests waiting for skins to set.....
Modern farming really is pants. Just because it's all done from aircon tractors with twin beacons doesn't make it right.

Nice rant there @7610 super q :cool::D
Beet has gone to almost zero around here since they closed the factory at Allscott
 

Henarar

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Somerset
Well, the fact remains, there's 1000's of acres more grown than there used to be. That means more mud on the roads, and peeved members of the public. Spuds and beet have been brought up on this thread, I'd say the area grown of these crops has remained static, if not fallen. 50 years ago 10,000 acres of spuds were grown in Pembrokeshire, all earlies, job done and dusted by July. Now the area has shifted to maincrop.....along with harvesting in mud in October. And while we're at it, small scale growers planted in a fortnight, and ditto harvesting. Now it's in the hands of big growers who take months to plant huge acreages, which means late harvests waiting for skins to set.....
Modern farming really is pants. Just because it's all done from aircon tractors with twin beacons doesn't make it right.

Nice rant there @7610 super q :cool::D
Modern farming seems to involve a lot more running about the roads hauling stuff one way and hauling stuff back the other way with ever bigger tractors, anyone would think folk were paid to wear out expensive tractors and trailers and tyres and burn diesel
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

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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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