World wheat yield record holder Rod Smith is busy drilling this week on his Northumberland farm as he hopes to grow an even better crop this season.

Drilling conditions were near ideal on his fertile heavy land, and he has already sown 48ha out of a planning 200ha of winter wheat over the last few days.

This summer he harvested a yield 16.52t/ha of the winter wheat variety Dickens setting a new world record which he hopes will be included in the Guinness Book of Records.

Rod Smith

See also: Northumberland grower breaks world wheat yield record

“We have had a good start to drilling and hope we shall be looking at crops of over 15t/ha,” he tells Farmers Weekly on his farm overlooking Holy Island on the north Northumberland coast.

One field of Dickens this autumn was drilling earlier this week after vining peas, harvested in late July, and he has high hopes for a bumper crop from it this season.

Last season, he grew 16ha of Dickens but has increased his area for the variety to nearly 100ha on his 400ha mainly arable Beal Farm, only 10 miles south of the Berwick-upon-Tweed.

He will wait until the spring to decide which of his wheat fields has the yield potential and lack of disease to try for a new world record yield.

Mr Smith grows winter wheat, spring barley, vining peas and broad beans on the deep rich clay soils of his farm close to the main London to Edinburgh rail line.