A broken weighbridge is causing massive hold ups at Hamish Morison Farming Ltd, West Morriston, Berwickshire, but thankfully harvest is complete.

“We had massive thunderstorms yesterday (7 September), with 39mm of rain and lightening, which took out the weighbridge,” said Les Anderson.

“We are now struggling to get an engineer out to fix it.”

Wheat harvest was quite pleasing, yielding about the five-year average at 9.1t/ha (3.7t/acre), with the best field of Viscount after potatoes managing 11.6t/ha (4.7t/acre).

“We had a very wet autumn and wet spring, followed by a drought, but the wheats seemed to compensate well using the late bit of moisture.”

However, winter barley had not done so well, failing to tiller properly, said Mr Anderson.

Sequel, Volume and Pearl averaged 6.7t/ha (2.7t/acre) – almost 2.5t/ha (1t/acre) below normal.

Catana and Cuillen oilseed rape also performed poorly, at 3.2t/ha (1.3t/acre), compared to a usual average of 3.8t/ha (1.55t/acre).

“Where it established well it did 4.2t/ha (1.7t/acre), and in hindsight we should have resown a lot more.”

Mr Anderson had now finished sowing oilseed rape into perfect seedbeds, with some early wheats and barleys also going in.

“There’s still quite a lot of spring barley and oats to tidy up around here, as well as the tail end of the wheat to finish off. But some of the spring barley, sown after turnips, is still green.”

Crop: Winter wheat
Varieties: Grafton, Alchemy and Viscount
Yield: 9.1t/ha (3.7t/acre)

Crop: Winter barley
Varieties: Sequel, Volume and Pearl
Yield: 6.7t/ha (2.7t/acre)

Crop: Oilseed rape
Varieties: Catana and Cuillen
Yield: 3.2t/ha (1.3t/acre)