Saxlingham – Summer Choices

June started with a flurry of activity – Weeds in some neighbours fields needed spraying so off I went…

…Initially with the Massy Ferguson 6S.155. You can see the selective spraying in action in this along the boom shot..

…Everything went fine but I did some research later and discovered that IRL this size of sprayer would probably need a 200HP tractor to properly power the supply of herbicide to the nozzles. Of course, that might be correct with all the nozzles operating but I wonder if it holds up for selective spraying? Anyway, for the next batch of weed killing jobs I sent out the 8S.265. It was a lovely misty morning that day…

The 6S picked up some lightweight fertilizing jobs instead where the power for the spreader comes from the hydraulic lines rather than from the engine’s power take-off. There was also some bale wrapping in the second week of June – The 6S heading home after completing one such job with my farm on the horizon…

…And that was it for June. The work just dried up. It was as if summer was waiting with bated breath for harvest time to come.

There is a common misnomer that Harvest is an Autumn thing. For this we can probably blame cultural and religious festivals that have celebrated the fertility of the Earth throughout time since man first gave up being a hunter gatherer and settled the land. The festivities in the northern hemisphere compress the harvest into a convenient period around the Autumnal Equinox. The hymn “Come, Ye Thankful People, Come” contains the line “All is safely gathered in…” and just underlines the popular conception that Autumn is the time of harvest. The reality is very different. Winter Wheat and Barley become ready to harvest at the end of June while some root crops like Sugar Beet will only be ready to harvest in late October early November. And as for Brussels Sprouts – You should wait for the first frost!..

I had been keeping an eye on a couple of fields that had wheat and barley in them hoping to be able to get together the funds to buy the largest of the two but I was to be disappointed as both were harvested before I got a look in! Without a growing crop they have less value to me and I realised I would have to look elsewhere for my first farm expansion. The silver lining was some huge post-harvest Baling jobs. For these I sent out the Valtra because that Claas square Baler is very heavy. Baling is one of those slow steady jobs where you plod around the field before working up and down until everything is packaged up…

…And on a massive field like this one it’s earning me £20k! Add in another field half this size and my bank account was £30k to the good by the end of the first week of July 👍

After Harvesting and Baling, it’s Cultivating time – I leased this big old Ford and a Vaderstad cultivator for one large field…

…Then sent out the Valtra with my own cultivator for a smaller one…

Grass was also being harvested and that meant Bale Wrapping for Silage which the 6S went to do…

…after which I was running low on Rani-Wrap, so I popped to the store with the Merlo…

…Probably should have taken the trailer to bring that back 😅

The third week of July produced a batch of Mowing jobs…

…and it was while working these that I took the decision to buy two of the other grass fields that were ready to harvest – Fields 27 and 30. The rest of the week was spent working these. The 8S prepares to leave field 30 after mowing…

…All neatly done so the baling will be easy! Then it was time to visit field 27…

…to similarly mow in preparation for baling. The Valtra followed up to carry out that work…

…and then it was the turn of the 6S to wrap the grass bales…

…Finally, the 8S returned to collect the bales…

…And take them back to the farm to ferment – that will be silage in around 2 weeks.

I hit one game mechanic issue while doing this – The baler had been set to a 250cm size for the previous straw jobs but although I reset it to 220cm before starting this job, the first bale produced was to the old size and my bale wrapper wouldn’t take it…

…This is because of a necessary compromise in the way the game works. Whenever you complete baling a field there’s often some residual straw of grass left because you didn’t get enough for a complete bale. The game then converts whatever is in the baler to the next crop and thus you get a pure bale of, in this case, grass. Unfortunately, it also retains the previous bale size until the left-overs have been baled. It’s a lesson learned and I will leave the baler set to 220cm for all future work. I popped back later with the Merlo and took the errant bale to the animal dealer where no doubt it went down well with the Bunnies in the Children’s section😅

The last week of July saw some hail storms which limited me to doing a bit of cultivating with leased machinery…

…That Summers cultivator is big and very heavy! I’m surprised I didn’t bring down and telegraph poles on my way to and from the field!!

The core harvest season in August / September is now upon us and my Canola should be ready so we’ll be running the Combine next post! 😎👍