Robert Craig has harvested most of the winter barley at Carse Hall, Ballykelly, Londonderry, and is well ahead of schedule.

“We’ve cut most of the Cassia winter barley with yields at 8–8.6t/ha, which was very pleasing,” he said.

Alongside good yields, the weather and soil conditions had been perfect, and the crop was coming off the field at around 15% moisture.

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“Although the straw was a bit green, we made the most of the fantastic conditions – we’ve never cut the barley at those moisture levels in the past,” Mr Craig said.

“To add to this, we’re about 7-10 days ahead of where we usually are.”

With around 75% of the winter barley harvested around the area, Mr Craig was expecting to be silaging, ploughing and reseeding in the next few weeks before moving back onto the combine.

“We’re about 3-4 weeks away from getting into the spring barley,” he said. “It’s looking good, although the rain over the weekend has caused some heavy patches. Over the next few weeks it will hopefully right itself ready for harvest.”