@Lookup2Wakeup I live in the US - if only we had something nearing the quality of the BBC - you all are very lucky not to have ratings driven TV, which is a race to the bottom in terms of quality or interesting TV. I'm sure the BBC is perfectly capable of producing crap as well, but it also outputs a huge amount of high quality content. Imagine if 98% of whats on TV is either Fox News or the Kardashians.....
@@ckm-mkc The quality isn't what you think it is. The BBC is running off the coat tails of it's golden days and throwing money into decent editing but even it's flag ship programs are becoming increasingly poor in accuracy, content and there isn't a person in Britain who still thinks the BBC is politically impartial.
They don't happen often but we've had bad droughts before. There were 3 major ones during the 20th century and I'm sure there are uncountable others further back.
I’m not a farmer. I have *nothing* to do with agriculture. But, my lord do I love this channel. Harry is gifted at this sort of thing. Fingers crossed for you and your rainfall!
Very pleased for you and your fellow farmers, Mother Nature was cutting it really fine. Hindsight would be a wonderful thing, I think linseed would have been a more popular choice this year.
My partner has just started a new job in agriculture working mainly within the corn Market, she is finding your channel very interesting and useful as she is training from home at the moment.
@@harrysfarmvids she will hold you to any wrong ones... Haha no she has been learning about the crop varieties, the buying and selling of the seeds and traceability.
Have been listening to the whining of farmers about how tough things are for most of my long life......but you always seem to do better & better as time goes by........just can't imagine how much that machinery you use costs....must run into £millions...
Harry is a happier farmer and that is very good to see. Great videos Harry, please keep up the excellent work. As a consumer it is educating me as the challenges all UK farmers have every day.
Has a huge garage full of exotic cars and bikes. Tweets about rain meters. You gotta love how down to earth Harry is. He has somehow gapped the distance between farmers and the masses
Harry you did not mention the input costs of putting all that water on the land if you irrigated or put it on with the sprayer! I know input costs are huge... the Joe and Johanna Blogs have very little idea..
Great content, I too came upon this channel from your other one :) I am interested to know what your output per hectare in tons of wheat is and how it has varied throughout the years; getting some "performance figures" would be great and in true spirit of the "Garage". Thank you and wish you better weather.
I remember, as a kid, I always thought England is that country where is always raining, all Englishman carrying their umbrellas all time. Then, in high school we learned that Britain has very unpredictable weather. Not to have anything with video, just memories...getting old I guess.
I don't understand where that factoid comes from. All UK farmers I know are trying to increase the organic matter of their land and check their nutrient levels regularly too. It's critical to think longterm in our game. Maybe it might be true on thiner land not managed well, or in areas of the world where forests have been stripped back and the land is now farmed intensively on a cash crop basis. Farming is such a diverse term, it's impossible to generalise like that anyway. How can you compare a Brazilian farmer to a Cambridge Barley Baron. Still, makes for a good headline, hence why our UK media run with it..
Well done for fearlessly addressing the dirty subject of money, from which so many shy away! I found this, as usual, a very honest and fascinating account.
Herein the South of Vietnam we have just gone through the dry period and to keep our fruit trees going we watered each evening. Our water is pumped from a 23m deep bore hole powered by an electric pump, it was so hot at night we also ran 2 A/C units in the bedrooms. Just had the electric bill in for the month and it was double any other bill we have paid, those bananas had better be good.
This cracked me up “......this is the worst bit of wheat I’ve got on the farm - almost - it’s debatable, because I’ve got lots of rubbish wheat.” Sadly it’s so true of so many crops on farms this year and why the wheat harvest could be half of that of last year. The weather is a cruel master. Another very interesting one Harry 👍
Thanks for the update. Every time it rained this week I was wondering whether it was doing the same on Harry's farm. I can now get back to worrying about something else.
I'm amazed you don't have more subscribers. I don't own a farm (though I do live in the UK countryside) but I find these videos fascinating and the challenges very well explained. Please keep making them :)
Thanks for the explanations on irrigation Harry, to those of us who are not farmers that really explained the in´s and out´s of it. I am a Brit living in Austria, just twenty minutes north of Vienna along the Danube and was out on a bike ride the other day looking at all the fields. Where I am we have large plains of land surrounded by the low hills of the Vienna woods then Alps in the distance. It has been really dry here up until two weeks ago where we have had some good consistant rain and the fields of mainly corn and wheat in those two weeks have really blossomed and grown, it was lovely to see. in m particular village which is more in the hills we have lots of vineyards ( as I type this I am lookng out on to them) and they are really flourishing now.
same here in southern Germany, it was really looking dire until a week or so ago. The ground water and the amount of water in the Soil is still on extreme drought levels, and that's not going to change I'm afraid. This way we always depend on rain at just the right time
You know, I'm a car guy. I followed through reading glory-days Evo, to Harry's Garage, and now to here and, dare I say it... *small voice* Harry's Farm might be the episodes I look forward to the most. Very interesting, oddly therapeutic to watch. All we need now is "Harry's Watches" to round out the set. :P
Harry's Farm- Thanks for answering my Q about irrigation Harry, I really appreciate it. The fields in Lincolnshire where I live and have seen irrigation are most likely growing sugar beet or potatoes as a lot of both come from our area. We have had some torrential downpours here and I thought to myself 'I bet Harry's happy'😊 I wondered if you farmers had been doing a rain dance. 😆
Great to hear that the rain arrived. Here in Czech Republic, the severe drought conditions experienced in Feb/ Mar have been lessened by quite "Irish" weather over the past month : some days of continual rain, temperatures in the low teens ( should be low 20's this time of year ). Heavy rain in parts of the country forecast Wed 10th, with flood warnings in some areas. If you open this link in Chrome, you can use the "Translate Website" function. This page gives handy maps of Czech Republic for soil temperature, soil moisture, and "vegetation status based on photosynthesis activity". portal.chmi.cz/aktualni-situace/aktualni-stav-pocasi/ceska-republika/pocasi-a-rostliny#fotosynteza. QUESTION PLEASE : Is there something like these stats online for the UK ?
Just got the reference on the sweatshirt! Harry's game (Radio4) 'Old Nick' , Nicholas Roeg,, another fab film showing us Towns folk what's going on in the world that counts and excellent production to boot.
I know it isn't your framing, rather the framing we're presented with but we don't have a water problem on the UK, we have an artificially inflated population problem. Our water levels haven't changed in any meaningful way for a long time. It's the same thing as "the housing crisis", etc, etc.
I had considered using a water bowser on our grazing fields last week. Glad I didn't, especially if it takes 500 runs up and down a field with a self propelled sprayer to achieve 10mm of water per meter.
Oh my goodness. It’s happened to me. I have gone from Harry’s Garage to Harry’s Farm. 😂 But the brilliant thing is, no one’s trying to outdo everyone else with inane comments about whose is bigger or better. Kids, stay away. This is for adults only.
Always was a tricky farm to manage as soil type varied so much across a field, let alone the farm itself. I really need to drop by Widmore again, be great to see how the farm looks now..
@@harrysfarmvids it would be great to see you if you were over this way,though it doesn't look so good as last year.The wheat done 4t on the bank opposite mrs Moores last harvest.
Talking about rain. Sometimes we are so naive or arrogant and we think we can compete with what our Creator gives us. If He withholds favours to us, no way anyone can reach the same level without overstretching themselves compared with how innumerable amounts He can provide us form the sky. I have been binge-watching all your videos. Amazing as ever, thanks for sharing Harry.
Glad to hear you got some rain! A definite sense of relief amongst a lot of farmers we speak to. Fingers crossed you get some more over the coming week.
I think that financial argument against irrigation is flawed. Because the pattern of droughts has changed, old "return on investments" statistics is useless. It might be that pretty soon, without some watering (or water draining) help, your odds of getting a decent crop in a particular year will become essentially zero. Also, if grain prices will stay low you'll have no choice but to pave your fields over with a race track and open a "Brexit Factory" :)
A question Harry. Many Farms operate Farm Shops, presumably to maximise profit. Is this something that works for your farm, or is the crop mix and pasture animals not suitable?
You don't _need_ a permit. You could irrigate your crop without one. You are just punished by people if you do... people who don't care if you fail. They'll grandstand and make all sorts of noise about the agricultural sector and the importance of farms and the blah blah blah.... They don't care if you fail. If you water your wheat they will punish you. Tell me again why those people are necessary.
I believe I'm a few miles south of you here in North Wiltshire. Every time the weather changes I do wonder if this is good or bad for you! Love this series, not shouty like some of the US big farming channels, just good, honest and reasoned explanations of a UK farmers trials and successes.
Hi Harry, just tapped into this off the back of your garage, would be really interesting to know the economics of farming and what kinda scale is needed for a decent ROI. Thanks
Like others here, I saw the rain and thought Harry’s going to be a happy man! Still more in the forecast over the next few days, so I’m pleased for you. Loving the insight these videos give and your thoughts on the irrigation question were interesting, as were the insights into how much difference financially a bit of rain can make to crop yield. As a non-farmer it’s really interesting. Cheers Harry.
Glad the weather turned in your favor Harry, but it's hard to deny that that luck is getting harder and harder to come by with each passing year...thank you so much for sharing what you do with the rest of us, it's incredibly educational!
if you dug a massive pond (no planning permission) at a higher elevation - you could sell the excavated material and power your irrigation using ram pumps with gravity alone! plus you could have fish and floating buildings / floating solar panels or something on it
I have a question for you. I was wondering what your average wheat yields were in your region. Where I farm we average about 70 bushels an acre and south of here the average is 35 bushels An acre.
An interesting video because I often go walking in the area where I live. This year has gone from one extreme to the other. January and February it was so wet I hardly bothered going very far from my home and then the rain stopped with the lockdown and we weren't allowed to go very far anyway. I live in the Mendips and the thin soils on limestone are the driest I have known in the 20 years I have been here. Where do you farm? I guess it might be on the edge of the Cotswolds as there were a couple of stone walls in your video which look like limestone and have the same cock and hen stones along the top, similar to those near my home.
Once again, what must be just a mundaine fact of life for the seasoned farmer becomes an interesting lesson on the finer points of arable farming. Thank you Harry for your informative and entertaining content, I hope the weather treats you and the rest of our much cherished farming community well.
