He hopes to start harvesting the rest of his 52ha (130 acre) rape crop on Wednesday (July 21).

 “The establishment of the crop was poor and it’s now looking a very patchy in places,” he said.

Mr Cooper harvested some of the more patchy crops with a yield of 3.7 t/ha (1.50 t/acre)

“Hopefully the rest of the rape crop will compensate for the yield of the patchy crops.”

“In the worst places we had to rip up the crop and re-drill with peas.”

This amounted to 8ha (20 acres). “I was left few other options,” he explained.

“This year‘s pretty much the same as last year,” he said, referring to how the rape was performing.

Over the weekend Mr Cooper‘s farm received over ¾ of an inch of rain, while other farmers in the area have received over an inch in some very short but heavy showers. 

But Mr Cooper is not concerned because the rain was helping some of his later wheat crop and he grows no barley.