Harvest was finally completed on 17 September, with the last of 51ha of spring beans cut.

Rustling up a harvest team after a nine-day break is always tricky, especially when the focus on the farm had moved from combining to autumn sowing.

Wheat harvest had been completed on 8 September. The results from harvest 2021 were really quite pleasing, with winter wheat, winter barley, oilseed rape and spring beans all performing slightly better than our five-year average, and spring barley virtually on par.

About the author

David Fuller

David Fuller manages 3,500ha of medium sandy clays for McGregor Farms based at Coldstream, on both sides of the border. Cropping includes wheat, spring barley, winter barley and oilseed rape, spring beans and vining peas. Potatoes are farmed in collaboration with Greenvale AP.

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This was amazing considering the weather patterns over the past 12 months.

Despite the lack of companion crops, our oilseed rape has all established extremely well.

See also: Five reasons to delay wheat drilling this autumn

We did see some light cabbage stem flea beetle damage in some crops in the first half of September.

The forecast was warm and dry so we co-applied a pyrethroid insecticide along with an early graminicide, which seemed to have helped. Most of the crops now look strong and have moved away from any establishment issues.

September has been very kind this year and cereal drilling has been moving forward at a rapid pace. The recent rain showers have been welcome – as long as they don’t outstay their welcome.

 Winter barley has all been sown, with most emerged.

The winter barley area is split between the varieties Tardis, Kingston and Thunderbolt. We are almost three quarters of the way through winter wheat sowing, with all available first wheat sown.

This year’s mainstay varieties include Grafton, Graham, Gleam, Skyscraper, Saki and Extase. New for us this season will be Illuminate, Insitor and Dawsum.