Crops look very mixed along the Essex / Hertfordshire border, and harvest is still a few days away, according to agronomist Charles Carter.

“On the light land crops did burn out in June, and some people have started cutting winter barley where it’s died off completely.

“But on heavy land the crops don’t look too bad. There is quite a lot of stem-based fusarium – I don’t know how that will impact on yields.”

Farmers had sprayed off their oilseed rape, and were likely to start combining that next week, said Mr Carter.

“Some of the rape has gone off badly on the light land; I think the early drilled crops have fared worse than the later drilled fields, because their growth stage was more susceptible to the drought.”