Combines have made excellent progress over the weekend, but forecast rain this week could threaten remaining crops.

In Shropshire, farmers were combining this morning (6 September) to try and finish before the weather broke.

“There’s very little left – we’re 99% done,” said David Roberts at merchant GO Davies. “But there were people going this morning at 22% moisture because of the forecast.”

Further east, John Steele had finished harvest at AK & JF Farms, Hamerton, Cambridgeshire, and had almost finished drilling oilseed rape.

“We finished the wheat on 11 August, before the rain, and then finished up tic beans, maple peas and linseed last week.”

In Scotland, Frank Thomson was combining spring barley at Burnside of Tynet, Clochan, Morayshire.

“It is very windy today and the spring barley had come very quickly with the better weather – we have caught up apace.”

And in Northern Ireland, Richard Kane had finished combining wheat at Broglasgow House, Myroe, Londonderry, leaving just 24ha (60 acres) of spring barley to cut.

“The past 10 days have been great – but we’ve had an inch of rain today.”

Winter wheat averaged 10t/ha (4t/acre), with Westminster spring barley averaging 7.4t/ha (3t/acre).

However, yields proved very disappointing at Chris Vowles’s Freemans Farm, Barrow Gurney, Bristol, where harvest finished on Friday.

“It was really dry here and we only got two-thirds of a crop. Where the soil was shallow it was a real let-down; I just hope that some of the fertiliser is left in the soil from last year.”