The heat of the last few weeks has matured the feet faster than usual, hence these early harvests.
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The combine harvesters are now released in the fields and on the roads of our countryside. Cereal and rapeseed harvests have started, or even over, in places.
The dates vary from one plant to another, from one region to another and even from one plot to another. But according to data from the public organization France Agrimer, all cereals have been ahead, compared to the national average since 2020. The heat of the past few weeks has matured faster than usual, hence these early harvests. This week, everything has accelerated especially in the fields of Île-de-France, as in the Yvelines, near the Rambouillet forest.
In this field, in Punay-le-Temple, the large combine harvester devours the large rapeseed plants, to extract the very small black seeds. At the wheel of the machine, there is Pierre: “It’s up to the nearest centimeter, it requires a lot of attention.” Pierre Harvester since Monday June 30, two weeks in advance: “We started with winter barley and since then we are in rapeseed, and then after the wheat … everything will follow each other. It’s ripe so we are moving quietly.”
“If the weather is nice, instead of starting on July 14, we will be finished.”
Pierre continues his back and forth, in the purr of his machine. His colleague Loïc Rivière is at the end of the plot: “The fact that it matures, it was very accelerated by the hot weather and the heat wave. Since mid-June, it has been ripening very quickly. When it is 30 degrees, it literally has grids on the foot. We thought we had a few days in front of us but in the end, the three days of heat wave finished grilling everything that remained.”
The neighboring wheat field, all golden, intrigue Loïc Rivière, employee of the Middle -Court farm. Here he is sinking into the plot, grabbed an ear and tastes a grain: “He crunches. It’s ripe. I didn’t think he would be ripe so quickly.” This year, the harvest should be a little better, estimates Loïc Rivière: “The Colzas are much better, we will see if the wheat follows but I am a little more pessimistic.”
Less than 10km later, at Marc Winocour, at the Moisan farm, in Grosrouvre, the harvest of wheat is already ending. The grains are all harvested and stored under the breaths of a hangar: “Wheat in early July, I had never seen that. July 1, never! We are easily three weeks in advance.”
And this farmer knows what he is talking about. At the age of 71, the cereal engineer has just sold this exploitation to his son, which he held from his grandfather: “When I settled, I harvested my wheat at the end of July, in early August. In general we harvest a little earlier than before, this year it is particularly early.”
“But a priori when you look at the grain it is not bad. It is pretty well filled, tempers the farmer. We were lucky, we had rain in June, at one point when the wheat needed it, so the ears were able to fill really well. ” This must now be checked, with the analyzes. If the harvests are ahead, it is still too early to take stock, both on quality, and on yield.
