The Wheat Harvest

The last three weeks has also seen my wheat being harvested and it’s been a very poor crop. The wheat itself is excellent but there wasn’t much of it. I’d not sprayed the field with herbicides and relied on turning the soil and also used an organic fertiliser. My yield is about a fifth to a seventh what I think it should have been with a high level of other matter in it. There was a very high germination of last years sunflower crop, helped by the mild weather earlier this year resulting in the field being generally yellow rather than golden at harvest time and as can be seen from the photograph the wheat was quite sparse and stunted. I’m wondering if the winter and spring deluges washed the fertiliser from the field before it had time to do its job.

So I now need to think very carefully about what to grow next and whether I can afford to keep with the organic/permaculture idea or whether I will have to grow the cereal conventionally as I will be making a loss on this harvest, the question is how big a loss.