Harvest is still being badly hampered by wet weather in Cornwall, but prospects are brighter than the past couple of years.

Jon Bond, who farms at Trerule Farm, Trerulefoot, Saltash, said he hadn’t had many decent spells of weather and harvest was now a long way behind.

“We usually finish our winter barley in July – but we’re only halfway through.”

He hoped to be into some more Sequel barley this afternoon (13 August), in time to clear fields ready for oilseed rape sowing.

“Yields have been better than anticipated, at 6.2-7.4t/ha (2.5-3t/acre) – it looked like it was going to be a lot worse than that.”

Mascani winter oats, which had dried out more quickly, were almost finished, and had averaged 6.2-6.8t/ha (2.5-2.75t/acre) – about normal for the farm.

Cabernet and Castille oilseed rape were complete, but yields had been very poor in places where late-drilled crops were damaged by rabbits.

“Where it had a good stand we got 3.7t/ha (1.5t/acre). The Cabernet was better than the Castille.”

Mr Bond expected the last of the oats, winter barley, winter wheat and spring barley all to be ready at once. “It will be a bit of a nightmare.

“The early wheat is looking quite promising, but some of the later ones went in too late and suffered in the hard winter.

“If we had some drying weather now for a couple of weeks we would be okay – it’s not an unmitigated disaster like last year; at least the prices are a lot better.”

Crop: Winter barley
Variety: Sequel
Area: 40ha (100 acres)
Yield: 6.2-7.4t/ha (2.5-3t/acre)

Crop: Winter oats
Variety: Mascani
Area: 22ha (55 acres)
Yield: 6.2-6.8t/ha (2.5-2.75t/acre)