This has without doubt been a harvest time to try to forget. Although in the last four weeks we’ve managed to grab days to do a bit of field work, the rain has seemed pretty relentless with over six inches during the month.

The weather forecasters haven’t really helped much as pretty much each week they’ve hinted that there will be a spell of good weather in four or days’ time but like a mirage in the desert it’s dissolved just before we get there.

On the positive front we’ve managed to get about 20 acres of grass seed in which has germinated and is up through. We also got the wholecrop spring wheat cut although part of the field is a bit the worse for wear as the hill seems to have developed a new spring as a result of the amount of rain.

Our crimped winter wheat was more of a mixed bag. Because of the weather, it took us three goes to get the 50 acres combined. The first field was really quite heavy at around 4.5 t/acre and for a small second I worried that the pit might not hold it all, but then reality kicked in and the other two fields were somewhat lighter so although we had to extend the pit a little, it wasn’t too bad.

The straw is another matter however. Clearly, we couldn’t lift it behind the combine as it was still pretty green but we thought that we’d get some sort of break in the weather to get it lifted. But no, four weeks later it is still lying in the swath and some of the immature grains that didn’t get threshed have started to germinate. It will very much be a salvage job, I think.

On the cow front I’d say things are ticking along reasonably well although I guess it kind of depends on what figures you want to look at. At our last recording a couple of weeks ago our calving index (CI) was 420 and average number of days-in-milk (DIM) was 240, figures that I’m sure will horrify a lot of dairy farmers and advisers who would rather the numbers were nearer 380 and 180.

Their argument would be that the 240 figure shows we clearly have too many stale cows (i.e. ones that calved a long time ago and are now well down their lactation curve so not giving much milk), and the 420 shows that we have a fertility problem.

Well looking at the CI figure first the problem is it is easily skewed by just a couple of cows that take a while to get back in calf. In the last three weeks we’ve had two second calvers where their calving interval was >650days which automatically adds two days to the CI.

Why, you might ask, were you continuing to inseminate these cows when they were well over 300DIM (a lot of people stop after 250DIM)? Well given that they managed 36t and 27t of milk in that tirst lactation and are now back in and doing >60kg/day each a few weeks into their second lactation I think we can excuse the fact they were tricky to get back in calf.

In fact, I was reading something the other day that was suggesting that for the benefit of the unborn calf it might actually be advantageous to have conception later in the lactation when the cow isn’t producing so much milk and has a better energy balance. The idea being that when the calf is conceived in an environment of energy stress then there may be epigenetic changes to its genome which may reduce its growth and productivity throughout its life.

As to the DIM figure suggesting we have too many stale cows we’re currently at >41 litre into the tank at @4%BF and @3.25%P so the cows must be holding up pretty well.

The last month has also seen us send our oldest cow for her holidays. Killywhan Supersonic Myra 2 is just over 12½ years old and has just completed her nineth lactation with a lifetime total of 172t of milk. According to the latest edition of Holstein UK’s 'The Journal' this means she joins a pretty exalted group as just 10 pedigree cows in the UK have passed the 170t of milk milestone in the last 15 years. She still has quite a way to go to reach the top though as Sterndale Manat Angelique produced an incredible 228t of milk over her lifetime.

Speaking of reaching the top, it was Premier Nutrition’s virtual TMS (Transition Management System) awards ceremony on Tuesday evening. Unfortunately, we were ineligible this year but was great to see so many Scottish farms amongst the nominees, with special mention to Andrew McWilliam of Colvin Farm, Wigtonshire who won for Best TMS Performance in a herd up to 250 cows.