Sunday

September 22, 2019

Checking drying progress

12 comments:

  1. Looks dry, very dry.

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  2. I suspect it is drying only too well.

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    1. Actually it is not as quick as you would think. Traditionally it is way too early for us to be making hay. We normally don't cut hay til early-mid October when the weather warms up, but with crops dying we had no choice. The other issue with cutting crops early is that the plant is immature i.e. the seed head is still in the stem, creating multiple layers inside the stem that need to thoroughly dry before we can bale. Any moisture left in the stem could cause the hay to spontaneously combust i.e. catch fire, when it has been baled.

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  3. Sure does look dry but what a wonderful looking sky.

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  4. With the failure of so many crops, I hope you will all be OK...

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    1. The 2nd year of zero water allocation is what really hurts, which sadly has been caused by government’s management more than anything else… but the drought has exasperated it. Will we be ok? Yes. Does it hurt? Yes... but we are a lot better off than so many others. In the last 18 months half of the dairy farms in our district have closed down... with more closing almost weekly. Very sad.

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  5. A perfect example of parallel lines converging.

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  6. Little hay here as it's been a wet summer. The Barley loved it. Sugar content way up. So is every other buggers. Prices down by £20.00P/Tonne, but only if we re-screen for lights. Naughty, naughty malters. Can't blame them really as we ripped them off last year.

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