Very few cereal crops have been cut yet around Newtonards, Co. Down, with the wet winter meaning most farmers are waiting for spring crops to ripen.

“There is very little winter crop in the ground because of the bad weather, so everyone’s waiting for spring barley,” said Philip Davidson, director of North Down Grain.

“It’s been sprayed off and would have been ready yesterday (29 August), but it wasn’t a decent drying day, so it just stayed too damp.

“Next week, we should have a better picture of things.”

Mr Davidson had only had 20ha of winter barley that survived the winter, which averaged 7.2t/ha.

“It was Saffron and Retriever and was very patchy, so the yield was better than expected,” he said.

Spring barley looked well, even though a lot had been sown late after winter crops were ploughed up.

“It established well, and the grain looks healthy, with lots of straw,” he said.

“It’s had a long growing season and harvest is late, but ground conditions are first class – we just need some sun to dry the crop out.”