Some of you may remember from waaaaay back at seeding time that we had enough time and the right seasonal conditions to tackle the renovation of a few pastures/putting in potential fodder crops. During my walk this morning (which was like walking twice the distance in this horrific wind) I noticed that the crop near the house is looking pretty spiffy. Finally! The Barley has had a few troubles with root lesion nematodes and as such hasn't really performed as well as we'd hoped. When farming there is ALWAYS something we can or could have done better and unfortunately this crop was one of them. However, it's starting to look a little healthier and we still have some options for spring sowing if we want to. I'm getting off track though! I wanted to show you the difference between Barley and Oats, and what better way to do that than with a picture of a paddock with both types of crop in it!
See the dark green patch feeding in from the right? That is the Oats and the lighter green is the Barley. Oats generally grow straight up and drop their 'heads' over when they mature. When I say 'head' I mean the top section of the plant that holds the actual grain. (Rest assured there will be plenty of harvest pictures for those of you that are curious.) Whereas Barley tends to spread as it is growing, this means Barley often looks like a carpet across the paddock while you can still see down the rows of an Oat paddock. For a little while at any rate. So there you have it the difference between Oats and Barley. If you have any questions, feel free to comment. Oh, and if we grew wheat I would show you that to but we haven't done that in quite some time.
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