Anthony Carr is two-thirds through this year’s harvest at Offord Hill Farm, Godmanchester, Cambridgeshire, and has seen some surprising results.

“It’s going very well – the weather’s moving things on nicely,” he said. “With the winter barley and oilseed rape out of the way, there’s just the spring barley and winter wheat to go.”

The 65ha of winter oilseed rape averaged yields around 3-3.2t/ha, with Cabernet proving to be the lowest yielding of this year’s varieties.

“Expower was, without question, the best of the lot with the best oil, but we’re down on last year’s yields, which averaged 3.7t/ha,” said Mr Carr.

The 16ha of Carat winter barley yielded just under 7.5t/ha. Although that was down on last year, Mr Carr said it was pleasing outcome, taking into account the dreadful growing conditions at the beginning of the year. 

“The Quench spring barley has been the surprise crop of the year, yielding the same as the winter barley,” he added.

The 40ha of Target and Scout winter wheat yielded 8.6t/ha.

Moistures had been good all round this year, with the spring barley coming off at 13.5%, winter barley at 12.5-13% and wheat at 14%.  

 “We’re very pleased so far – we don’t have the option of a drier and so far we haven’t needed one,” said Mr Carr.

“All we need now is for the weather to stay fine to finish the year off nicely.”

Crop: Winter wheat
Variety: Scout
Area: 12ha
Yield: 8.6t/ha

Variety: Target
Area: 28ha
Yield: 8.6t/ha

Crop: Winter barley
Variety: Carat
Area: 16ha
Yield: 7.5t/ha

Crop: Spring barley
Variety: Quench
Area: 40ha
Yield: 7.5t/ha

Crop: Winter oilseed rape
Variety: Expower
Yield: 3.7t/ha