Organic Arable member hails a fine harvest

Congratulations to Carl Gray on his yields as declared in last weeks Farmer's Weekly article.

Interesting to see Invicta doing so well. Claire has been a mainstay of organic wheat production for a number of years as it has performed consistently well in trials. Perhaps Invicta is set to topple it but remember this is one year on one farm and quite an extreme year in terms of weather.

Let's hope Invicta can perform well in future years to help improve organic yields more broadly.  Was the care and attention Carl gave to growing a seed crop responsible for the additional yield or is the variety itself that much better?   Perhaps Carl could share with us all how he managed it

Organic wheat thrills near Tewkesbury - 9/7/2011 - Farmers Weekly:

Green shoots of the green recovery?

Much of the media claimed the recent Defra stats about the organic farming sector as evidence that the sector was in terminal decline.

Well here's the good news to contradict this analysis. Whole Foods Market, the US organic retailer, announced it would be opening a further new store in Cheltenham.

As a major retailer of organic products this is not a business that invests where it cannot see a return on that investment and so to announce this decision shows they believe that there are still plenty of people who are looking for organic products to buy.

Rather than looking at rather historic data about the sector and drawing rather hackneyed conclusions they are analysing their retail data and looking at opportunities to expand their business.

Despite what some may feel about large organic retail businesses this is a new opportunity for shoppers to buy organic products and for suppliers to expand their sales and should be welcomed.

New store announcement Cheltenham UK:

Harvest Reports August 2011

It's still early days and many organic farmers still have a way to go with harvest but here are a few early thoughts on how the harvest is progressing.


Yield
Reports are mixed but generally yields are better than most had been feared.  Reports of 5t/ha for wheat in the western counties would put yields at about par.  The story in the eastern counties is generally less encouraging with yields down about 5% on budget although this is better than was predicted back in the spring.  Best yield reported was over 7t/ha for some Tybalt spring wheat on un-irrigated land in Suffolk where it out-yielded the irrigated field next door.  This crop followed a vetch green-manure which it is assumed meant moisture retention in the soil was good.


Interesting comment from some trial sites of rye out-yielding wheat.


The variety trial data for the Organic Seed Producer trials will be available shortly.


Quality
So far hagberg levels seem good.  Protein levels are the usual mixed bag with levels between 9.5%and 11% being tested.    First sample of Panorama has reported at 9.5%, Hereward ranging from 9.5 to over 11% and Magister at 11%.  I am yet to be convinced that variety has a huge influence over protein level and am of the opinion that the soil and season have a far greater influence.


Bushel weights do seem good.  Several samples of wheat are testing at 83kg/hl, barley at 67 kg/hl and oats are testing at 54kg +.


This is an early refleaction on the 2011 harvest and I'd be glad to hear from anyone with either yield or quality comments to get a broader picture of how things are progressing.


Happy Combining!