Tony Higgins has only got 3.2ha of spring beans left to cut to bring harvest to a welcome end near Langport, Somerset.

Although he had finished harvest at Middlegate Farm, Pitney, the final field of beans was on a contract farm, and growers were still bringing wheat in to dry and store, he said.

“It’s been a diabolical harvest – the hardest I have known in 55 years of farming. It’s bad enough to have to dry every tonne, without having poor yields and bushel weights as well.

“It’s a year we all just want to forget.”

Heavier land, which usually yielded well, had not performed as well as brashy, stony ground, said Mr Higgins.

“And the crops that looked well in the winter haven’t done so well when it came to harvest. We had 16ha of Diego that looked pretty awful, and yet it yielded a good 8.2t/ha.”

Wheat had struggled to average 6.8t/ha at the home farm, 2.5t/ha below last year. Bushel weights ranged from 62kg to 72kg/hl, with most at 65-68kg/hl, he added.

“Winter barley was quite pleasing, at over 8.6t/ha, and rapeseed was about average at 4-4.2t/ha.”

Spring barley wasn’t too bad, either, at 6.2t/ha, and spring beans at the home farm had done well, at 4.3t/ha.

“It’s been very variable – one field of spring barley on a contract farm was flooded four times this year, which wasn’t too clever.

“But one farm on the coast near Weymouth had a much better harvest, with better bushel weights and wheat yields at 7.4t/ha.

“I don’t know whether it’s the sea air or what, but it just didn’t get the disease that we had here.”