David Neale plans to start combining early-drilled wheat tomorrow (21 August) near Burford, Oxfordshire, but is hearing of very variable results around the country.

As Agrii’s crop marketing and seed specialist, Mr Neale was forming a good picture of overall harvest progress from Scotland to Kent. “It’s a very mixed bag – in Kent they are well through – one good week and they’ll be almost done,” he said.

“But in Worcestershire they’ve hardly started, and are only just desiccating oilseed rape – it’s really all over the place.”

Perhaps surprisingly, farmers in the North East of Scotland had enjoyed a good season throughout, while those further south, into the Borders, had struggled with establishment and now a damp harvest.

Winter barley was probably the best crop of the year, with hybrids and six-rows performing particularly well, said Mr Neale. “Some have yielded 10t/ha and above – but there’s a lot in the 5-7t/ha range.”

Bushel weights were good, but some spring barley samples were suffering from high screening levels, he added.

“The heat of four weeks ago caught some spring barley and winter wheat at a vulnerable stage – and any crops that went into difficult seedbeds and have poor rooting have been very variable.”

Spring barley yields were reasonable, at 7.4-8.6t/ha, although nitrogen contents were tending towards the high side, at 1.8-1.9%, said Mr Neale. “With so much spring barley around, the maltsters will have lots to choose from.”

In sharp contrast to winter barley, oilseed rape was likely to be the agony crop of the year, he added. “There are split fields, with some combined and some not yet desiccated.”

That said, there had been some half decent yields, with many farmers pleasantly surprised at reaching 3t/ha and others getting up to 5t/ha. “We had Excalibur that yielded over 4t/ha,” he said.

“The tougher hybrid varieties and anti-pod shatter genetics have helped. I think Quartz, Catana, Trinity and Harper are all varieties to watch.

“But there are quite a lot of small seeds, so farmers will need to watch out for the thousand grain weight when drilling this year. Demand for seed is rising by the hour.”

Oat samples had been variable, with some lower bushel weights starting to appear, said Mr Neale.

But wheat had been quite reasonable, with 8-10t/ha yields proving quite acceptable to farmers who had such low expectations earlier in the year.

“Bushel weights are good, at 74-84kg/hl, Hagbergs are solid at over 300 seconds, and although there are a few more variable proteins coming in now, generally protein contents are good.”

Rooting pressures had resulted in higher levels of take-all, which would be particularly apparent in second wheats, he added.

“There has also been such a wide window of drilling dates, which has demonstrated that the HGCA maturity rating of plus four doesn’t translate into four days later ripening – it’s more like 10-14 days,” said Mr Neale.

“There is still a lot of green straw and leaves around, so with the shift to later maturing, higher yielding varieties, farmers must take that into consideration when making variety choice.”

Pea yields and quality were apparently extremely good, which should be a bonus given the high pulse prices, he added.