Mark Woodroff has finished the cereal harvest at Hundreds Farm, Crowland, Lincolnshire, clearing up the last of the spring wheat yesterday (29 August).

“It was drilled after sugar beet, on 10 April, and yielded over 7.4t/ha, according to the combine,” he said. “As it’s grown for seed it should make a £35/t premium, so I’m quite happy with that.”

Grafton winter wheat averaged about 9.9t/ha, compared to 8t/ha last year. And Vision oilseed rape came off at 4t/ha.

“This year, we drilled 80ha of maize on a contract farm, to supply an anaerobic digester – so we’ve had less wheat to harvest,” said Mr Woodroff.

“We have a lot of resistant blackgrass issues, so drilling maize instead of wheat, especially after the wet winter, has proven to be very useful.”

He planned to increase the area of maize this year, and would follow it with wheat or another maize crop, depending on the lateness of harvest.

“We’re now starting to think about spraying off some potatoes – we’ve been irrigating them as it’s a late season,” he said.

“We usually start lifting them for chipping in the middle of September, and will sacrifice a bit of yield sometimes to get the quality safely in the barn.”

Crop: Winter wheat
Variety: Grafton
Area: 80ha
Yield: 9.9t/ha

Crop: Oilseed rape
Variety: Vision
Yield: 4t/ha