Winter barley harvest is drawing to a close, confirming early expectations that it could be the best crop of the year.

In North East England farmers had cut about 90% of their winter barley, with very little oilseed rape and wheat under way yet, said Gary Bright, managing director at GrainCo.

“We don’t normally get wheat coming in until the last week in August,” he said. Early drilled wheat looked quite reasonable, but later crops were thinner, with a number of bare patches. “I think yields should still be better than last year.”

Hybrid and six-row barley varieties had performed particularly well, said David Neale, Agrii’s crop marketing and seed specialist. “Some have yielded 10t/ha and above – but there’s a lot in the 5-7t/ha range.”

Harvest progress was very mixed, with farmers in Kent nearing the final week, and others in Worcestershire barely started, he added. “It’s really all over the place.”

In the Arbroath area of Scotland, most producers had finished their winter barley, with both yields and quality proving reasonable, said Trevor Harriman, general manager of Scotgrain.

But it was still early days, with very little oilseed rape, wheat or spring barley cut as yet.

Across the sea in Northern Ireland, wet weather had made for slow progress in County Down, and many spring barley crops had lodged, said Graham Furey at Castleview, Killyleagh.

“In general first wheats look well while second wheats are quite poor,” he said. “There’s quite a lot of take-all around now, and some fields will probably yield just 5t/ha.”

In Cambridgeshire, farmers had cut about 20% of their wheat, with reasonable but not exceptional results, said Rob Munro, marketing director at Fengrain,

Milling protein contents were slightly low, at 11.5-12.5%, and yields were probably slightly above average.

However, but given that the earliest deliveries would be first wheats, overall results would probably fall away later on, he added.