Diary

The Governor of Penza, Vasily Kusmich Bochkarev, at the annual ceremony for agricultural companies last week presented OOO Heartland Farms with the following awards:
1. Best Farm - 2nd Place – for outstanding achievement.
Colin Hinchley, Operations Director, for average cereal yields of 3.4 mt / ha. (Penza Oblast average 1.7 mt / ha)
2. Best Team.
Vasily Nedeev, Head Agronomist, for achieving 134% of budget.
3. Best Harvest Operators.
Vadim Lebedev & Vladimir Grishakov, combine operators, for harvesting 5,114 mt of cereals with two Massey Ferguson 7276 combines. (Note, only spring crops were sown in 2005)
Congratulations to the people receiving the awards and to the rest of the Heartland Farms team who contributed greatly to these successes.

All crops have all been safely harvested and are either stored in rail elevators or already shipped to buyers. The highlight of this season was the very good weather allowing timely crop protection applications and an easy harvest. The crop of the year was the Annabel barley which all made Class 1 malting with max 11% protein and bold grains requiring very little cleaning. In terms of profit per hectare this crop was our best although the wheat performed well current market prices are capping returns. We grew 130ha of 1st generation Kanelsky which produced very high quality wheat, gluten 27-28, which will all be used for seed next season.

Sunflower seeds were a disappointment due to a late spring and the crop not fully maturing, however, these were grown on land straight from dereliction and yields were never going to be high.

2 varieties of wheat have already been planted on 2000ha and it looks very good. All the land has been fully prepared for planting in the spring, 4800ha, including a 1000ha of sugar beet which is being grown on contract. This, with 2000ha of malting barley which is produced for a major Russian brewery, means that over 40% of our crops are now grown on contract.

This autumn wheat plantings have reduced dramatically in Russia & especially Ukraine (reports of 40% reduction) where there is talk of an export ban later in the season to preserve stocks for an expected shortfall next harvest. The main reason is the very dry autumn, some major grain areas received no rain at all during September, and with the lack of planting capacity and time this decrease is unlikely to made up by much in the spring. Heartland Farms are therefore looking to maximise wheat production next season.

We have started drilling the 2,000ha (5,000 acres) of winter wheat using two 6 mtr drills and one 8 mtr. The land was cultivated from derelict this year and fertiliser has been applied.

We expect this to rise as we move in the higher quality milling wheat's over the next few days. Some grain from the morning harvest requires some drying but as the day progresses the moisture drops to 14% and under. The first wheat's made C4, lower grade milling, and the later cuts C3, higher quality milling. The Kenelskaya 59, 1st generation for our own seed next spring, looks very good and we wait with anticipation to see if our yield expectation of 5t/ha plus come to reality.

Harvest is nearing the end with the barley now complete and an average yield of 3.5 t/ha. All the barley made 1st Class malting and sold at good prices. No drying was necessary and very little cleaning as the crop was of good grain size and the secondary cleaner on the MF combines produced a high quality sample

Harvest started on August 11th with the first cuts of Annabel Malting Barley.

The cultivation of derelict land continues quickly as we continue to work 24hrs, 7 days a week.

Crops are developing well and spring wheat should exceed our budget projections at this stage.

The company applies full-scale fertilizer and chemical programs for its crops.

Drilling spring barley and wheat.

End of April. Field works started.

Farming equipment arrives to start spring planting 2005.