Jim Beeden has made swift progress with harvest at Hackthorn Farms, Welton, Lincolnshire, with everything now cut bar Fuego spring beans.

“We’ve started the beans, and so far they’re yielding 4.25t/ha – but by tonight (2 September) we’ll have cut everything that’s fit,” he said.

Santiago and Diego wheat on strong land yielded 9.5-10t/ha, with January-drilled wheat averaging 7.5t/ha and Zircon spring wheat 7-7.5t/ha. “We’re pretty pleased with that.”

Revelation soft wheat, grown for seed, averaged about 9t/ha. “We drilled it on 19 September into a limestone brash just as we hit the dry spell, so it will have lost some potential as a result,” said Mr Beeden.

“We used a relatively low seed rate of about 108kg/ha, so taking this into account, I think the crop has done really well.”

Oilseed rape was extremely variable, with poor crops grown with few inputs yielding 2t/ha, and more decent crops producing up to 4.2t/ha. “It’s just all over the place.

“I’m just concentrating on next year’s crops now – we’ve got almost all the oilseed rape drilled now, which is good.”

Crop: Winter Wheat
Varieties: Santiago and Diego
Yield: 7.5-10t/ha

Variety: Revelation
Area: 23ha
Yield: 9t/ha

Crop: Spring wheat
Variety: Zircon
Yield: 7-7.5t/ha

Crop: Spring beans
Variety: Fuego
Yield: 4.25t/ha