November on the farm
2-MINUTE READ
Andrew Huxham, arable farmer and co-founder of Hectare Trading
As I wrote last month, 2025 has been an easy year operationally and November followed the trend. We have now completed the autumn herbicide top-ups and the sprayer is washed off and put away with the other machines.
We had a very busy month moving out crops, as most farm grain stores do in November. It’s a month when we have time to be outloading, as drilling is complete and no one has left for an extended Christmas break. However, despite an easy harvest, we have come up against some challenges in November. The first load of malting barley from a 400-tonne heap was rejected for a weevil. I really try not to be a defensive farmer in these situations but it’s hard. I demanded photographic evidence and diverted ten lorries into another store and began sampling the contaminated heap.
The returned lorry was tipped at another store and searched: I couldn’t find any bugs. I did some research to find out how samples are checked. We sieved and used a heat lamp. Could it have just been bad luck? I decided to resample the entire store: six sample results came back, no bugs, but there were mites. It quickly became apparent that, if conditions were conducive to mites, there could and probably are some bugs as well. While the easy harvest conditions had felt like my friend, this barley hadn’t been through any elevators, conveyors or our rotary cleaner.
We have always been very careful with malting barley though our combine, making sure some grain is left with an awn on to prove we haven’t threshed it too hard and potentially skinned or broken some of the grain. However, this year we were too gentle. The heap was quite dirty with awns and general admixture. Despite being on a drying floor, I hadn’t got the temperature down quickly enough. I had it down to 16 degrees by the end of August but then it was still at 15 degrees at the end of September and it wasn’t until the end of October that I got it down to 11.6 degrees.
I pride myself on looking after crops in the store and it felt like I had taken my eye off the situation and it was going to punish me. Some friendly conversations with the trade confirmed that mites alone are not a rejection, but it’s not worth the risk and, if there are mites, there are going to be other critters, as found in the first load. Fortunately, we have the ability to clean crops at our other grain store and we promptly moved and cleaned 300 tonnes which has now left the grain store and passed with no problems. I am grateful we have the ability to deal with these problems and hopefully December will prove slightly less eventful.
Crop to sell before Christmas? Post a free listing on Hectare Trading and see what buyers are willing to pay for your grain.
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