Winter wheat wholecrop

I'm a newbie to wholecrop as a feed for dairy cows. We have a small acreage in as a trial this year. It was sowed on the 10/10/2016 with Reflection WW.

So the question is what is the optimium stage to harvest to get the most feed value out off it? It is currently just past the milky stage. I've attached a few photos.
 

Attachments

  • 20170707_223311.jpg
    20170707_223311.jpg
    108 KB · Views: 148
  • 20170707_222640.jpg
    20170707_222640.jpg
    363.6 KB · Views: 172
  • 20170707_222337.jpg
    20170707_222337.jpg
    300.5 KB · Views: 164
  • 20170707_222327.jpg
    20170707_222327.jpg
    276.3 KB · Views: 147

phil the cat

Member
Mixed Farmer
take it to harvest sell it as grain sell the straw buy in grass bank the change with feed wheat at £155/t nov cant be wrong assuming a 3tn plus, crop just an idea

That's the conclusion we came to- with wheat price at that the wholecrop has got to be worth around £50/ton based on a 12-14t/acre yield which is strong money I think!
 
So I've just spent the last two hours working out the cost off growing the winter wheat up to date. Wish I hadn't to be honest!

Spray £132/acre
Seed £29/acre
Fertiliser £79/acre
Contracting £89/acre

Total £329/acre up to date Not including conacre
 
Does the harvesting time effect the quality off wholecrop? Have the harvester man looking to come at 5am to harvest on Tuesday morning. We try to mow all the grass around mid day for the high sugars just wondering is cereal crops similar?
 

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

  • 1,286
  • 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/
Top