I don’t bloody believe it! When I booked my pre-harvest holiday there was absolutely no way combining was going to start before I got back. Oh no, I wasn’t going to let that happen again.

Fortunately, I only missed one day, and also the 40C heat, and I’m grateful to those who sweated in my absence.

See also: Why brome is a rising problem when tackling blackgrass

The way the weather is going, it looks like a post-harvest break may be more appropriate while waiting for rain before planting again.

However, it was great to start with an oilseed rape yield that was actually back to normal after two very poor, flea beetle-ridden years, particularly as it was grown with no insecticide.

About the author

Andy Barr

Andy Barr farms 700ha in a family partnership in Kent. Combinable crops amount to about 400ha and include milling wheat and malting barley in an increasingly varied rotation. He also grazes 800 Romney ewes and 40 Sussex cattle and the farm uses conservation agriculture methods.

Read more articles by Andy Barr

The wheat output also looks promising despite the very early harvest, and the bushel weights are making loading lorries a lot easier than last year.

Peas, though, are not at their best. But frankly, their establishment probably highlighted the cover crop and straw residue processing qualities of sheep, which the crop had benefited from in previous years but not this.

I know Countryside Stewardship schemes aren’t for everyone, but, particularly now my fixed costs are more able to be varied, AB15 two-year legume fallow seems a reasonable option compared with peas and beans, especially on my less good land.

Until we got 1mm of drips around 8pm on 31 July, that month was shaping up to be the first in many decades of recording that my mother would not have measured any rain at the farm.

Unfortunately, the incredibly hot and dry conditions really hit home when I was alerted to a huge pall of smoke coming from one of my fields.

Charging down there to be confronted by head-high flames moving at speed through standing spring barley really got the adrenaline going, and at first it looked impossible to stop.

Huge thanks to neighbouring friends and the fire service, who were brilliant and did exactly that.