“We grabbed bits and pieces when we could,” he said.

He was harvesting at 25% moisture until the turbo in his combine blew up. He had to get a contractor to come in and finish off the harvest for him.

“In a way it was a good thing, because it forced us to wait a little. Moisture contents went down to 16%.”

Mr Dowson grew Einstein, Tanker and Deben this year. He was disappointed with the continuous wheat Deben, as it lodged badly yielding 8.65 t/ha (3.5 t/acre). The other two varieties both yielded 9.88 t/ha (4 t/acre).

But, his milling wheat had no quality, he said.

“There was no milling potential in it. All the quality had been washed out.”

He hopes to start drilling oilseed rape next week.