Whole Crop Spring Barley

[mghley]

I have a very nice stand of spring barley. Bearing in mind the fodder shortages I am wondering what it is worth to sell for whole crop rather than keep it and combine myself.
Anyone heard of sale prices ?

 

[DeeGee]

£500 an acre if it’s a half decent crop around here, maybe more? Fodder is going to be in really short supply this year and many stock farmers especially dairy farms are in the market for whole crop.

 

[Plas king]

£500 an acre if it’s a half decent crop around here, maybe more? Fodder is going to be in really short supply this year and many stock farmers especially dairy farms are in the market for whole crop.

Know of three lots of winter barley and wheat in the denbigh area sold this week £720 £725 and£750 per acer all gone for wholecrop

 

[DeeGee]

Know of three lots of winter barley and wheat in the denbigh area sold this week £720 £725 and£750 per acer all gone for wholecrop

Surely winter barley is too ripe now for whole crop, or do they have corn crackers or something on the foragers to mill the grain? Otherwise it will just go straight through the cattle: I know that spring barley will need cutting this coming week before the grain goes too firm to be useful.

 

[neilo]

Surely winter barley is too ripe now for whole crop, or do they have corn crackers or something on the foragers to mill the grain? Otherwise it will just go straight through the cattle: I know that spring barley will need cutting this coming week before the grain goes too firm to be useful.

Used to do plenty of wheat at home. The more mature the grain, the higher the starch. Cut it too early and it wasn’t any better than average grass silage really. And yes, always cracked grain, which I assumed was the norm these days.
My Spring Barley would be several weeks off (just in case anyone wants to make an offer at above rates to wholecrop it), but agree that most WB would be well over.

 

[Al R]

Surely winter barley is too ripe now for whole crop, or do they have corn crackers or something on the foragers to mill the grain? Otherwise it will just go straight through the cattle: I know that spring barley will need cutting this coming week before the grain goes too firm to be useful.

Alkalage it’s called when it’s almost fit for combining, you get proper wholecrop which needs a mill fitted when the grain is just passing the cheesy stage which is optimum for bulk and quality. You also get arable silage which most contractors around here want to do as it saves putting the corn cracker in - the grain is hardly developed and it’s not much better than a cut of grass at this stage, then contractors wonder why farmers stop doing wholecrop when they push them to do it at this stage.