Sandy Norrie has cut a little winter barley at AJ Duncan Farms’ Muirden Farm, Turriff, Aberdeenshire, and is swathing oilseed rape today (7 August).

“We’ve been quite lucky with the weather in our little corner, compared to the rest of the country,” he said.

“We cut 14ha of Volume winter barley on Friday, but the rest won’t be ready until later this week.”

The early Volume hadn’t yielded very well, at about 8.6t/ha. “It was a bit light and there wasn’t much straw. We generally look for 9.9t/ha so hopefully we’ll get into some better fields this week.”

Mr Norrie had 1012ha of winter barley to cut this year, with almost 2430ha of cereals in total.

“We started swathing the oilseed rape today – and it looks alright. The spring barley and wheat are okay too – I think some of the spring barley will be harvested before the last of the winter barley.

“There’s a good forecast from Thursday onwards so hopefully we’ll have three combines running all weekend.”

Crop: Winter barley
Variety: Volume
Area: 14ha
Yield: 8.6t/ha