Scott Campbell has ploughed 90% of his oilseed rape ground, at Kirkton Farm, Kinellar, Aberdeen, but it is still too wet to combine remaining crops.

“The ground is very wet,” he said. “We’ve been on ploughing but it’s too wet to drill anything. I just wish the rain would stop.”

However, Mr Campbell had made a good start to harvest, having begun combining on 23 July. “That’s the earliest I can ever remember starting,” he said.

“Winter barley moisture contents were as low as 12% and only went up to 15.5%, which is unheard of up here.”

Quality to start with was a little disappointing, with Retriever suffering from low bushel weights of 55-57kg/hl. “But the yields were still good, increasing from 8.2 to 9.4t/ha,” said Mr Campbell.

“The hybrids Bamboo and Quadra were our best ever, yielding up 10.5t/ha.”

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Early drilled oilseed rape was also disappointing, having died off early, but the later crops were better, he added.

“We had Cracker and a little bit of the hybrid Equinox, with yields ranging from 2.5-4.3t/ha – if we get 3.6t/ha we’re happy so that’s not bad.

“The great thing was the moisture contents – normally in a good year it will come off at 13-15% but this year it was all 8-12%.”

Having sprayed off Concerto spring barley 10 days ago, Mr Campbell was hoping to start combining again this weekend, weather permitting.

“I’ve tested it at 1.3% nitrogen, which is good – and the Catriona barley will average 1.75%, which should just scrape through for the high nitrogen contract,” he said.

“It ripened so fast that it took up too much nitrogen early on, so I think it’s going to be a low nitrogen year. But I’m not too worried about it.”

The Alchemy and Leeds winter wheat would be another fortnight before it ripened, added Mr Campbell. “It looks fantastic, so we’re probably going to need our big dump truck to cart it in again.”