After a difficult season, what has the combine delivered for our eight Arable Insights growers?

Farmers Weekly caught up with them to see how the harvest has progressed.

See also: How to introduce the SFI no-till action into cropping

West Midlands: Rob Atkin

Wheat yields are down by about 25% at Atkin Farm near Uttoxeter. While there’s still some wheat to cut, this year’s average is 6.4t/ha compared with the farm’s five-year average of 8.6t/ha.

A field of Oxford at 8.2t/ha is top of the farm leaderboard for this season.

“We knew it wasn’t going to be great,” says Rob Atkin. “The positive is we have very little ergot, and bushel weights are averaging 72-79kg/hl.”

Straw yield is also high at 1.4-1.8t/ha. Coupled with straw prices, which reached over £400/ha earlier in the summer in the region, this will help offset some of the lost grain income.

Only a small percentage of the grain has been sold so far, despite Rob suggesting over the past couple of seasons, selling for harvest movement has ended up being a good decision.

“Back in April or May, you could have sold wheat for £240/t for August movement, and it’s now nowhere near that.

“I did sell some for over £200/t but not a huge amount – you don’t know what you’re going to harvest, although if I was a betting man, we could have sold more.”

Some more wheat or barley will be sold before Christmas for cashflow, with the rest sold little and often over the next six months. He’s hoping prices will rise.

“I’ve had a message from a buyer wanting to do some sort of pricing rally to get some wheat committed, which makes me think farmers aren’t selling and there could be a shortage. I’ve never seen that before.”

Of the other crops, neither oilseed rape, grown for seed or winter barley were particularly special, with the latter yielding around 5t/ha.

“The first fields of spring barley yielded 6t/ha, but has made malting spec. “I’ll take that as a little win,” Rob says.

East Midlands: Heather Oldfield

In a season when establishment was extremely difficult, it’s been a year Heather Oldfield wants to forget.

The Gleam wheat that survived the winter deluge yielded 9t/ha, where usually the Oldfields would be looking for about 11.25t/ha on their land, and a far cry from the record 13t/ha achieved in 2022.

“It’s a big drop,” Heather says. “While we knew from walking it was thin, it isn’t until you’re in the combine looking down you realise just how thin, and how big the holes where nothing grew were.”

One small silver lining is specific weights just below 80kg/hl, but over half the loads that have gone into the Lingrain central storage have ergot contamination, which will need cleaning.

The majority of the Oldfields’ wheat is sold through various pools with Openfield, with the rest sold when they think the price is right. “I don’t think there will be much to sell this year,” she says.

Spring barley, drilled late, has made malting spec with grain nitrogen levels of 1.7-1.75% in initial loads, with yields at a pleasing 7.5t/ha.

South West: Dougal Hosford

Results from various experimental practice changes are making harvest results interesting, says Dougal Hosford.

“A field of Mayflower wheat with no fungicides and 170kg N/ha was very pleasing at just a tickle under 9t/ha,” he reports. “That’s definitely going to make a margin, although we haven’t worked it out yet.”

In contrast, the gross margin for Wildfarmed winter wheat, grown with beans which suffered from rust isn’t worth talking about.

“It’s yielded a total of 3.5t/ha, which was disappointing as the beans looked good, but are only about 30% of the yield, so they haven’t done well.

“The positive is on the preliminary sample, the wheat does look like it is going to make the specification for Wildfarmed.”

There might be deductions for ergot, although Dougal is not convinced it isn’t broken beans that have been wrongly identified.

The rest of the wheat, other than a field where single varieties are grown in strips for using in future blends, were blends and a bit more variable in yield.

Trials comparing lower doses of nitrogen at 140kg N/ha with 170kg N/ha are pointing towards the higher rate being more effective, he says. “It has been variable, so we need to analyse it further.”

But Dougal’s son, Fred, could see little difference between 40kg N/ha and 80kg N/ha in a field of bicropped spring oats sown at 45kg/ha and beans at 220kg/ha that yielded 5.1t/ha overall.

“It had two tebuconazole fungicides for crown rust in the oats, but we liked it as a crop as it was easy to combine, is a break crop, and is relatively easy to separate.”

Dougal has been using a 40-year-old cleaner, fitted with new screens of various sizes for separating break crops as well as cleaning cover crop seed. “It’s slow at 5t/hour, but the quantities are not massive.”

Another bicrop, peas and spring barley grown for Wildfarmed yielded about 6t/ha even though it was swamped by cleavers.

“We like the look of peas and barley. Our rotation of winter wheat, spring barley and winter barley before oilseed rape is a bit cereal heavy,” Douglas says.

“We are thinking if we can add peas to the spring barley, it might give the land a bit of oomph and result in a better crop of winter barley.”

East Anglia: Jack Smith

Dry weather through late July and August in East Anglia led to a relatively straightforward combinable crop harvest at AG Wright & Son in Haddenham, Cambridgeshire.

But it certainly wasn’t a vintage one for yield, says farms director Jack Smith. “First wheats were 5-10% down on long-term averages, while second wheats were 20% plus back.

“As a bonus, oilseed rape and beans were better than in recent years, but that won’t make up the wheat shortfall,” he reports.

Disease pressure – brown rust in Crusoe in particular – caused some of the yield loss in the first wheats.

The additional reduction in second wheats was because of poor establishment on heavy land and the subsequent wet winter.

Drilling date and conditions were much greater factors on feed wheat performance than variety, he says. “Our best established Extase, Champion and Dawson were all similar.”

But the disease pressure from rusts is causing a rethink on fungicides, with it highlighting timing importance, and the need for sprayer capacity and a firefighting rust product.

“Most varieties this year fell victim to one sort of rust at some point; there were very few that were pristine all year through.”

Both wheat and spring barley quality encouragingly look like they will meet specifications from initial testing, although some ergot will need removing.

Potato lifting has also begun.

“Early indications are that yields are variable, but reasonable.

“A bit like cereals, it’s what stage of growth they were at when various stress points hit through the season and how they dealt with those that will be the biggest factor on yield,” Jack says.

“Quality looks reasonable and the team are making good progress, which is refreshing given the challenges of the last campaign.”

North: Tamara Hall

Better than expected is the summary of harvest from Molescroft Farm in Yorkshire. Spring oats and beans were still to harvest, with Tamara Hall hopeful of decent yields from both.

“The spring beans are looking at bit greener than I’d like, but generally, we do have good yields when they take a long time to mature.”

A spring oat crop drilled for a neighbouring farm has yielded well, providing optimism for Tamara’s Leaf Marque oats, which are grown on contract for Quaker.

Wheat yields were variable, with those drilled earlier reaching 10.5-11t/ha, which is around the farm’s long-term average, while November drilled crops yielded 6.5-7t/ha.

“I’d have taken that when I walked them in the spring and there didn’t seem to be many plants. And it will still be profitable.”

Spring barley ranged from 6t/ha, where establishment was compromised by high rainfall following drilling, to 7.5t/ha with low grain protein ensuring they meet malting spec, Tamara says.

“It’s on a contract, which I did try to get out of earlier in the year, but now I’m pleased we weren’t able to.”

South: Tom Carr

Harvest was wrapped up at the Southwick Estate in Hampshire around mid-August. “It was nothing to write home about,” farm manager Tom Carr says.

“Wheat was weird. We had fields down at 6t/ha and others up at 11t/ha, and there was little rhyme or reason behind it.”

The estate grew two varieties, Champion and Extase, all drilled in a fairly tight window, with neither standing out as better than the other.

“I think the fields that were able to drain a little better, with lighter soil types did better because they were able to drain. But we had fields next to each other with that type of difference.”

Overall yields are down on what he would expect. “There were so many fields that were patchy, with bits flooded out in winter.”

Specific weights were also poor, he says, although he hasn’t seen any ergot, which is one major positive of the season.

Of the other crops, winter barley averaged 8t/ha, which would have been better if rain hadn’t caused ear to shed grain just before harvest.

Oilseed rape yielded a very respectable 3.3t/ha, despite Tom making the decision to not grow the crop again.

“We lost around two-thirds to flea beetle and other problems, but what did come through to harvest was alright.”

Northern Ireland: Neill Patterson

A snatch-and-grab harvest in Northern Ireland has at least had the silver lining of decent yields.

“It’s been a challenging year right from the start,” admits Neill Patterson of Cottage Farm in County Down. “And there’s not been much of a good dry period during harvest to get things cut.”

But crops on free-draining soils with plenty of stone content have been a blessing in disguise as yields of Graham have been maintained near target levels of 11.6t/ha.

Extase – hit with barley yellow dwarf virus infections in places – still yielded 10t/ha.

“We struggle in dry years with crops droughting out, so it is pleasing to be hitting those yields.

“We were a bit worried with minimal sunshine during June and July, which is usually needed to fill grains, but I think the cool weather allowed the wheat to mature slowly and fill the pickle.”

He also suggests the good performance was helped by his plough-based system minimising areas of fields with poor establishment.

“Talking to others in Ireland, it seems the minimum tillage and direct-drill systems have suffered most this season from poor establishment, especially on headlands, that has stayed with the crop right through the season.”

Graham’s performance had led to a change of heart for Neill, who was intending to drop the variety after seeing it break down to yellow rust.

“Now, I think I’ll stick with it, even with the extra spend. We took a precautionary approach with tebuconazole to get ahead of the game.”

Winter barley also performed well on the farm, with Canyon averaging 10.6t/ha, while spring beans due to be cut in mid-September also look promising.

Scotland: David Fuller-Shapcott

A difficult season has piled on even more challenges at harvest in the Scottish Borders, with nearly 50% of David Fuller-Shapcott’s 369ha still to combine a week into September.

“It’s frustrating. It’s not massively wet, but just as you think it is drying up, we get another 1-2mm and it sets you back again,” he says.

One of just three surviving fields of winter wheat has achieved a “diabolical” yield, albeit not surprisingly given it was drilled just hours before the October deluge began and struggled all season.

Winter barley made malting quality, albeit with poor yields, but winter oats were better – it’s a good Scottish crop, David says.

Prospects for the as-yet-unharvested spring oats and spring barley also look more promising.

“I don’t think there are any disasters in the spring crops, but cashflow is an issue as a consequence of the delayed harvest and not very good autumn crops.”

That includes oilseed rape, which was about 1t/ha below his five-year average. “Like most winter crops, it doesn’t like wet feet all winter, which had the consequence of slug damage.

“The lack of sunlight is also a big yield robber, while we also found the grassweed herbicide ran out of steam and, in an open crop, has let annual meadow grass back in with a vengeance, which I think will cause a problem with establishing next year’s wheat.”

He would like to create stale seed-beds using a demonstration Dalbo Powerchain if the weather relents.

“We have an opportunity as the oilseed rape was off a little earlier than usual, but the weather is not letting us take advantage,” he says.