Malting barley is the best Martin Bridges has ever had on Moray Estates,  Elgin,  Scotland, although harvest is still a slow affair.

“The quality of the winter malting barley has been excellent,” he said. “Yields were average but quality was some of the best I’ve had.”

It wasn’t just the winter barley yields that were  letting Mr Bridge’s crops down.

“All yields have been pretty average. Optic spring barley suffered in gales; Concerto has been the best by a long way,” he said.

“Rapeseed wasn’t outstanding either – it was fairly moderate.”

Mr Bridges still had plenty left to cut, with only 44ha of wheat harvested and plenty of spring barley to combine, too.

“We’ve cut some Istabraq on some light land. It’s pleasing so far but we’ve not really cut enough to say. There’s probably about 360ha left.

“Harvest is turning into a pain,” he added. “We’ve not had more than one dry day.”

While harvest was proving tricky, winter oilseed rape was in the ground and a large proportion of ploughing was done, too.

“I think we’ve been luckier than some of the country,” said Mr Bridges. “It’s quite ironic as we’ve had fairly good grain quality, unlike a lot of other people.”

Mr Bridges hoped to resume harvest as soon as the weather allowed, but with only 10 minutes of combining yesterday (17 September), dry weather was a somewhat scarce commodity.