Gerald Godfrey was preparing to start cutting winter barley within the next few days at Great Common Farm, Suffolk. Several neighbouring farms had begun cutting winter barley yesterday on the Suffolk/Norfolk border.

He said: “It’s going to be a very dry harvest, we needed a bit of rain.”

Mr Godfrey grew Carat and Spectrum winter barley for seed, however he said crops hadn’t suffered on the heavy land. He also hoped the oilseed rape had not been affected too much by the drought: “We’ve seen some heavy crops on neighbour’s farms so we hope the rape should be ok.”

However, his concern was for Claire, Gladiator and Einstein winter wheats: “We need an inch of rain to stop them ripening so quickly. Some of them are just dying.”