Wheat, spring barley and beans are still to harvest in more northern areas, but even these are a long way ahead of the usual harvest. 

Leicestershire

Leo Goss, Velcourt farm manager at Blackbrook Farm near Loughborough, is pleased with harvest, which has exceeded expectations on the marginal land he farms.

Second wheats have already been harvested, but showers have held up first wheat harvest, says Mr Goss.

See also: Video: Berkshire Farm Girl brings in the wheat harvest

“We had showers on and off two weeks ago and lost about seven days. We’ve cut all second wheat, but still have about 250ha of first wheats to cut. We’ll hopefully get into them tomorrow [19 August] and finish in the next four or five days.”

Wheat varieties include Parkin, Extase and mostly Skyscraper. “Extase did well and is a cheaper crop to grow, needing less fungicides and Skyscraper is a good shed filler. The average for second wheats was 8-9t/ha which was over budget for our marginal land. Specific weights were in the high 70s and moisture content was 12%.”

Three-quarters of the 40ha spring oat crop, Isabel, remains to be cut. So far, the crop has yielded 4t/ha, says Mr Goss.

“These will go for milling for human consumption. It’s the first year we’ve grown them and we definitely will again.”

Linseed is still to be harvested after two false starts due to fires.

Shropshire

Heading west, Andrew Craig, who farms at Westwood Farm, near Telford, still has 36ha of wheat to cut – 10% of his wheat area – which is Extase second wheat.

“The first wheat we cut was Zyatt second wheat, which came in at just under 10-11t/ha, depending on the field, and we were pleased with the proteins, which averaged 12.5-13%. Specific weight was 79kg/hl and Hagberg 270.

“We grew a small amount of Dawsum, which had an incredible specific weight of 85kg/hl and yielded over 11t/ha. Graham was easy to combine with a lot of straw and did 11t/ha plus, but Extase was variable, with some crops doing at least 11t/ha, but others, on sharper land affected by the dry weather, yielded 9.6t/ha,” says Mr Craig.

He still has spring bean variety Lynx to cut, which he estimates is two or three weeks from harvest. “Generally, in this area, the larger farms still have some crops to harvest, but many have finished except for a few spring crops and beans.”

Durham

Michael Manners, who farms at Conicliffe Grange, near Darlington, expects to finish harvesting Tundra winter beans early next week (w/c 22 August).

“They are about 14% moisture and will take a day to cut, but they have some green stems, which appear like second growth – a bit of an anomaly,” he says. “They don’t look to have yielded well and are a bit of a disappointment.”

But spring beans are not far behind. “We drilled them in November and they are not far off being ripe. We’ll hopefully get into them next week.”

The wheat harvest finished on 13 August. Varieties Gleam, Dawsum, Parkin and Astronomer averaged 11t/ha.

“I was very happy with that. Specific weight averaged 75-81kg/hl and Dawsum did 81kg/hl,” says Mr Manners.

Aberdeenshire

In northern Scotland, Doug Fowlie, farming at Mill Hill Farm near Peterhead, has cut 20% of his spring barley, Laureate, which is destined for malting, leaving 320ha to cut. So far it has yielded 7.5t/ha and nitrogen content is 1.3-1.35%.

“This is 0.2% below our normal levels – better for malting as it will give a higher spirit yield,” says Mr Fowlie.

“Specific weight is 60-65kg/hl and moisture is our lowest ever at 13-14% – normally we’re happy to see 18%.”

He is also into wheat, although spring barley is taking priority at the moment with its malting premium.

“Usually it is September before we cut wheat. We cut a lot of Skyscraper at the weekend [13-14 August].

The yield was not exciting at 8.5t/ha and the grains are quite small, with specific weights of 78kg/ha. We will be back into wheat next week [w/c 22 August].”