Malt barley in Finland: harvesting tasks

Our friend Timo sent us some pictures and comments about his harvesting task from Finland.

As main product Timo is growing six-row malt barley. Instead of beer the malt product is used by bakeries and it must have high protein level (over 12 %) and germinability (over 95 %).

Barley is sowed at the beginning of May and thanks to long days in Finland it is ready for harvesting in the middle of August. In Finland autumns are rainy and grain can never be waited to be under 14 % humidity. So it has to be harvested with moisture of 17…25 % and dried by oil burner. About 10 liter oil is needed to dry 1,000 kg of barley. Timo has an old dryer with capacity of 150 hl and the drying takes half a day time. So more time is needed for drying than for harvesting.

Timo has a Finnish-made Sampo-Rosenlew 2045 combine harvester with 3.9 m cutting table. Market-share of Sampo-Rosenlew has long time been over 50 % in Finland. As a light weight harvester it is suitable in wet fields and it is easier to clean inside than other combines. In Finland all harvesting work is done in August and September and because of the rain it is often not possible to have more than 30 harvesting days/year. So it is not possible to harvest more than 300 ha/year with one harvester. Most harvesters are used only for 30…100 ha/year. So the machinery costs are high both in harvesting and drying.

This year Timo's crop was in average 6,500 kg/ha that is over his 8-year average of 6,300 kg/ha. In the whole Finland the average crop is under 4,000 kg/ha. Also the quality was good this year.

He has storage for the whole crop like most farmers have in Finland. The price is lower in the autumn when those farmers who don't have storage have to sell their crop.

Versión en español.

 

Joaquín y Herminio Tribaldos (Twins' Farm)