Dry weather earlier in the year followed by a dull, wet August have played havoc with the ripening of crops, leading to some very late winter barley and oilseed rape. 

But despite the challenges, there have been some pleasant surprises in yields and quality

Scotland

For Jim Macfarlane at Edrington Mains Farm, Berwick-upon-Tweed, harvest has progressed in a strange order since the winter barley came off.

“We combined 21ha of Electrum winter malting barley at 8t/ha – local yields were good so I am a little disappointed it didn’t do better,” he said.

“We strip-tilled the variety this year after getting good yields in previous years – but it can be a feckless crop.”

Fortunately, screenings were low and nitrogen was good at 1.54%.

See also: World winter barley yield record broken in Lincolnshire

Usually, Mr Macfarlane would follow that with oilseed rape, but this year his 73ha of winter wheat pipped it to the post.

“We’re about three-quarters of the way through with Skyscraper and a small acreage of Extase combined,” he said.

“The Skyscraper has had some exceptional yields at 13-14t/ha on some of our strong, heavy land, but poor headlands really let the average down at 11t/ha.”

Left to go is 24ha of Acacia oilseed rape, 48ha of Diablo spring barley, and 22ha of spring beans for seed.

Northern Ireland

Across the Irish Sea, Robert Craig is also harvesting in a very different order to usual proceedings at Carse Hall, Ballykelly.

“It’s a strange harvest – I think we’re all combining crops in a bit of a backwards order,” he said.

“At the end of July, we had 10 days of unusually dry weather, which gave us a window for our 28ha of Amistar six-row winter barley,” he said.

“We got high moisture readings of 20% because it was still green, but it needed to come off – things just aren’t ripening as they usually would.”

Following that he was able to combine 22ha of Valerie and Orwell winter barley, but he still has another 18ha of that left to combine.

“Valerie yielded 8.6t/ha, with Orwell for seed at 7.4t/ha and for feed at 9.9t/ha,” he said.

“Again, some of the feed barley was green, but we don’t have any specification back yet.”

High moistures of 23% are holding off the combine for now at Carse Hall, with oilseed rape also left to cut in the surrounding area, but of most concern is that about 40% of spring barley in the area has been flattened by heavy rain.

East Sussex

In Wadhurst, James Fuggle is half way through harvest at Chessons Farm, and has had some surprisingly excellent yields.

Last week, he finished his 40ha of Zyatt winter wheat, which yielded 10-11t/ha, averaging 74.4kg/hl and 12.2% protein.

“The Zyatt will perform very well if you look after it,” he said. “It can really struggle with rust so we make sure we’re on top of it.”

But high moistures are now a challenge and are keeping him off the remaining 40ha of Siskin and Graham.

The combine has also been into his 30ha of Mascani winter oats.

“The specific weights have been disappointing. It’s a crop that usually grows well, but the lack of a spring has not helped it at all.”

After his cereal crops, Mr Fuggle will make a start on his 40ha of winter beans, which look okay but nothing is a promise.

Gloucester

Moving west, Chris Padfield has had a few challenges at The Hawthorns, Staunton – but his field beans are the best they’ve ever grown.

“We had 50ha of field beans with the best-performing fields at 5t/ha; unfortunately, the headlands were very poor and that really pulled the average back, but we’re still very pleased with a 4.5t/ha average – corrected for moisture,” he said.

Into cereal crops, Mr Padfield has cut 50ha of the Elicit winter wheat, which averaged 9t/ha.

Now into his 70ha of Bennington, early yields are averaging 8.5t/ha and 72kg/hl, with poorer fields down on specific weights at 68kg/hl.

The 12ha of Mulika spring wheat has been more problematic. “We went in and came back out,” he said.

“In the one field, we were only getting 5t/ha, it wasn’t ripe so we’re leaving that for another week.”

Mr Padfield also has 50ha of spring oats that have suffered with the weather and a leatherjacket infestation. “It’s looking poor,” he said.

“We’ve not had a problem with leatherjackets before, but we’re not expecting much of a yield.”