The UK wheat harvest is 12% down on last year while the barley crop slipped 10% largely reflecting lower yields, according to an official Defra forecast.

The provisional 2016 wheat estimate is put at 14.5m tonnes, down from 2015’s 16.4m tonnes, but largely in line with a five-year average of 14.7m tonnes.

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Full results including yields and areas for wheat and barley, along with results for other cereal and oilseed rape crops will be published next week on 13 October.

An AHDB survey last autumn pointed to a slightly lower wheat area at 1.825m hectares for harvest 2016 down from 1.832m hectares the previous season, while nationwide yields are expected to be down due to a lack of sunshine in June.

The 2016 barley harvest is forecast at 6.7m tonnes, including winter and spring crops, down from 7.4m tonnes the previous year.