“We’re steaming along quite well,” said Charles Martin at Mill House Farm, Abbotts Langley. “We’ve done 95 acres (35ha) of winter wheat and just got the last five to do.”

Consort yielded 7.5t/ha which was “better than expected considering the weather”, although yields were down on last year. He said: “I’m definitely blaming the weather.”

Quality was generally looking good although he said some grains had suffered from the drought and so looked a bit shrivelled. All his wheat was to be put into the pool system.

Mr Martin expected all the wheat to be cut by the end of today. He planned to grow Einstein wheat next year instead of Consort, sticking to one variety in order to avoid storage problems.

He added: “My agronomist said Einstein has better disease resistance and that Consort has had its day.”

• Crop: Winter wheat
• Variety: Consort
• Area: 37ha
• Yield: 7.5t/ha