Page 37 - The Farming Years proof

InTRoDUCTIon To BARLEY
The most dif cult thing to me was to set the concave correctly on the thrashing drum, particularly on the worn combine. This is done before you start. It has to be set to the appropriate dis- tance for the crop to ensure that the grain is thrashed out of the corn allowing the straw to pass through with minimum resistance whilst ensuring no corn passes through with the straw and on the ground. This is thrashing.
Without realising, at the time, my under-sowing with grass had made the process even more dif cult to be an effective thrashing to get all the corn into the drum and pass through to the tank for collection. This was the extreme of learning curves because the under-sown grass was a real challenge to get through the concave setting and thrash all the corn. In fact it didn’t and some corn was left with the straw.
The stress on the cutting bar which was cutting straw and grass was excessive and the drive to the cutter bar broke several times and had to be welded. The progress was very slow to avoid cutter bar stress and it was only possible to cut when the corn was 14% moisture or less. So it took 3 days to cut the 13 acres with a combination of going slowly to accommodate the grass and welding up the cutter drive.
We sold 17 tons at £72 a ton and kept 3 tons for the sheep and horses. We did end up with 400 bales of barley straw for bedding. never again did I under-sow corn with grass; an expensive lesson because it cut down the yield.
I had acquired two further small 3 ton trailers that we put high sides on for carting the corn to the barn. We lled one of these with barley and used it for the horses. We had another year, 1979, with spring barley but we increased our acreage. We took out the hedge and left 3 oak trees down in the two 3 acre hill elds at Loddington which gave a clearer run for arable cultivation and consistent conditions for growth.
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