Scottish Borders grower Les Anderson had only 10% of winter wheat left to cut in Earlston, Berwickshire. With only 20ha (50acres) of 200ha (500acres) remaining, he expected to finish in today’s sunshine.

“In the Borders most farmers are the same with 10% left. There’s probably only 10% of spring barley left too.”

He was a week to ten days ahead of normal and said the wheat had not been affected by the early harvest or the recent wet weather.

“We’ve had super quality and fantastic yields – I’ll put it down to the area we’re in.”

Wheat was coming in at 10t/ha (4t/acres), which was above average, and the last two fields were coming in at 11.25t/ha (4.5t/acres). “We thought these last two fields would be less, but they weren’t. These are big yields for us.”

Only oats had been affected by the wet weather. “The quality has definitely dropped and they are definitely not the golden colour they should be.”

Oilseed rape had been drilled for 10 days and Mr Anderson said the rain had helped.

“All the rape is up and through. It was sowed in very dry seed-beds and then we had a few inches of rain. Everything has now been sprayed. We couldn’t have asked for better.”

He was half way through sowing 120ha of winter wheat, but some feed wheat seed had not yet been delivered. “We’ve ordered four or five tonnes more seed that has not arrived yet, but then I’ve heard no one else complain about having no seed.”