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Know How / Harvest

Harvest is the busiest time of year for arable farmers. Get ready for harvest with advice on hiring harvest workers, maintaining combines and harvest kit and preparing grain stores and crop storage. Keep-up-to date with harvest progress around the country and get the yield results as they come in. 

Advice and tips

DISEASE MANAGEMENT

Why fusarium risk is rising in wheat and how to manage it

With rising incidence of fusarium ear blight and changes to mycotoxin legal limits on the horizon, experts are advising wheat growers to adopt a more water-tight, integrated approach to minimising…

ARABLE

Tips for raising oilseed rape yields

Oilseed rape growers taking part in an Adas-organised yield competition averaged 0.5t/ha more than their counterparts in Germany last season, a country that has historically out-yielded the UK. While the…

MACHINERY

Top tips to keep your combine running in the wet

August invariably delivers a spell of bad weather, so we’ve put together 20 top tips from the experts on how to ease the flow of damp crops through the combine.…

BUSINESS

Legal, tax and management tips for a smooth harvest

Farmers Weekly’s harvest webinar is packed with practical farm management, employment, tax and financial advice to help harvest go more smoothly. The advice comes from our Business Clinic partners –…

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Archive

FARMER FOCUS

Farmer Focus: Worried about poor cereal drilling conditions

Harvest finally finished on 6 October, when the last of our 1,266ha went through the combine. And in a fitting end to the season, a sunny day turned to drizzle…

FARMER FOCUS

Farmer Focus: Third wet harvest takes its toll

I like to think I am normally reasonably positive and optimistic, but this harvest and the past couple of weeks, in particular, have really tested me and, I'm sure, many…

FARMER FOCUS

Farmer Focus: Only 10 good combining days this harvest

Harvest is finally complete and although it has dragged on, we have had one of our earlier finishes, particularly with the wheat harvest finishing on 2 September. All in all,…

FARMER FOCUS

Farmer Focus: Spring barleys reviewed as harvest drags on

As harvest has progressed, the weather pattern seems to be getting worse, with frequent rain meaning that to date we have only managed a maximum of three successive whole days…

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Case studies

BARLEY

Barley grower sees winter crop come up trumps

Malting barley grower Andy Roberts’ strategy of growing both winter and spring crops paid a dividend this summer as good quality from the former made up for a more problematic…

HARVEST

Video: Farmer shares lessons learnt fighting huge crop fire

Since the early start to harvest at the beginning of July, Twitter has been awash with reports of crop fires across the country, exacerbated by tinder-dry conditions. As the hot,…

PULSES

How winter bean grower in Yorkshire achieved top yields

A perfect bean-growing year produced a record yield for one East Yorkshire grower and a good enough sample for human consumption to win a prestigious quality award. Robin Smyth grew…

ARABLE

Video: Hands Free Hectare - what next for the farming robots?

Excitement, pride, trepidation – just some of the feelings buzzing around a perfectly square hectare field in Shropshire as a driverless combine took its first bite of a crop that…

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Community

FARMLIFE

Harvest 2018 photo competition: Winner and best of the rest

We've had a bumper crop of entries for this year's harvest photo competition – almost 1,000 reader snaps were uploaded to our gallery. We were impressed by the creativity of…

FARMLIFE

Get your harvest photo on FW's cover – competition open

There's still time to enter your best photos of harvest 2018 into our competition to find a jaw-dropping front cover image for Farmers Weekly magazine. We want to celebrate harvest…

HARVEST

More ways of coping with being a 'harvest widow'

Our article, "10 ways of coping with being a 'harvest widow'", seemed to strike a chord with all those spouses leading a largely solitary existence while harvest is under way. It…

FARMLIFE

10 ways of coping with being a 'harvest widow'

Combines are rolling, so we should spare a thought for all the spouses who will be leading a solitary existence until harvest is complete. If you’re in that category, here…

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Insights

HARVEST

Harvest 2018: The 5 top-yielding spring barley varieties map

Throughout the harvest season we are updating our handy map with the latest data from 2018’s AHDB winter wheat Recommended List harvest results. Use the map below to find the…

HARVEST

Harvest 2018: The 5 top-yielding winter oilseed rape varieties

Throughout the harvest season we will be updating this handy map with the latest data from this year’s AHDB oilseed rape Recommended List 2018 harvest results. Use the map below…

HARVEST

Harvest 2018: The 5 top-yielding winter barley varieties

Throughout the harvest season we are updating our handy map with the latest data from 2018’s AHDB winter barley Recommended List harvest results. Use the map below to find the…

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News

SUGAR BEET

British Sugar to delay opening of its beet plants

British Sugar is to delay the opening of its four sugar beet processing plants after warning this season's crop would be "much lower" than the previous year. The first beet…

SUGAR BEET

British Sugar warns of 'much lower' beet harvest

Sugar beet processor British Sugar is warning this autumn’s harvest is set to be “much lower” than last year’s 1.37m tonnes of sugar due to a wet spring and very…

ARABLE

Harvest 2018: Spring beans still some weeks off

Harvest is in the final throes across northern England and Scotland, with winter wheat and spring barley almost wrapped up. However, spring bean crops are still a few weeks off…

HARVEST

Harvest 2018: Late-cut cereals yield well on east coast

The end is in sight for the Scottish harvest, with spring barley continuing to disappoint in terms of yield, although quality remains strong. In East Anglia harvest has restarted for…

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Opinion

HARVEST

Opinion: Dad's sayings fit Harvest 2016 very well

For some reason, that probably lies deep in my subconscious, I think about Dad a lot at harvest time. He died in autumn 2007, so this is the ninth harvest…

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Video

HARVEST

Video: Winter wheat harvest success for Hands Free Hectare

The Hands Free Hectare team has successfully harvested the world's first winter wheat crop to be grown by robots. The project, which first set out to grow and harvest a…

HARVEST

Video: Yields down but quality also a worry for spring crops

Delayed drilling due to the wet spring and an early harvest have combined to take their toll on both the yield and quality of one Essex grower’s 480ha of spring…

HARVEST

Harvest 2018 video: wheat quality good but yields disappoint

The early wheat harvest is producing generally high-quality grain although yields are lower, with many crops having seen no rain for more than two months in the summer heatwave. Early…

HARVEST

Video: Farmer shares lessons learnt fighting huge crop fire

Since the early start to harvest at the beginning of July, Twitter has been awash with reports of crop fires across the country, exacerbated by tinder-dry conditions. As the hot,…

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