Harvest is underway in North-East England, and early indications are of excellent winter barley yields, according to Gary Bright at Tynegrain.

“We had a few people combining very early barley two weeks ago, but we hadn’t seen any until yesterday (25 July). Harvest only started in earnest this week.

“So far farmers are pretty happy – the early reports are good and everyone’s keen to get on.”

Volume had performed extremely well this year, with many crops exceeding 9.9t/ha (4t/acre). “There’s a lot of seed being sold for next year.”

But more traditional varieties had also done well, at 7.4t/ha (3t/acre), he said.

“If we’d asked farmers two months ago they probably would have expected 4.9t/ha (2t/acre).”

Mr Bright had not seen any oilseed rape cut as yet. “They were spraying it off last week so it will be ready in about 10 days, at the same time as wheat.

“It’s going to be a store keeper’s nightmare, with all crops coming at the same time.

“Everyone is very optimistic about the oilseed rape yields. The only thing people are still apprehensive about are second wheats, which don’t look so good.”