Mike Hambly’s harvest has been rained off at Wescott Barton, Callington, Cornwall, so he is busy carting straw today (28 July).

“We had a few showers, so are just trying to clear the straw,” he said.

So far he had cut all of his oilseed rape and all but one field of winter barley. But the results had been rather mixed.

“The PR46W21 oilseed rape was very disappointing – the worst of it yielded 2.5t/ha and the best did 3.7t/ha,” he said.

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“We’ve never had such weedy stubbles; we used the usual herbicide programme but perhaps it didn’t work because it was so wet. That can’t have helped the yields.”

Cassia winter barley, where it was drilled at the end of November, was also disappointing, at 7t/ha – but the earlier drilled fields were far better, at 8t/ha, said Mr Hambly.

“We had an ADAS fungicide trial on the farm, and that did 9.2t/ha.” Quality was good, too, with bushel weights at 68-69kg/hl, he added.

Farmers in the area had cut some winter oats, and Mr Hambly reckoned he would start combining his own oats straight after finishing the winter barley.

“I’m hearing that some people have cut some winter wheat, but ours is a week away yet. It looks pretty promising, but we won’t know until we get into it.”