With the UK wheat harvest half complete according to the latest AHDB harvest report, combining for some farmers in the earlier South is drawing to a close.

See also: Harvest 2025: Kent Bean yields performing well

Essex

One of these farmers is Daniel Jones at AWT Farm Services near Saffron Walden, with land covering south-east Cambridgeshire and south Suffolk.

Winter wheat has been a mixed bag across the 858ha total, with Palladium peaking at 10t/ha at 77kg/hl.

“It was one of the better performers, though overall wheat yields have been disappointing,” he says.

Milling variety Crusoe produced proteins of 12.5-15.5%, depending on yield. Illustrious averaged 6t/ha.

“It looked fantastic all winter, but any stress and it just dropped tillers left, right and centre,” he adds.

The 229ha of winter barley averaged 8.04t/ha, with Caravelle doing particularly well at 10.4t/ha. Capitol was the poorest performer at 6t/ha.

Spring crops were reasonably good, with Laureate spring barley yielding 7t/ha and meeting malting spec at 1.7% nitrogen.

Isabel milling oats yielded an average of 6.2t/ha, with some crops reaching 7.5t/ha.

“Given how little rain we had, I was happy with that,” says Daniel.

“Everything generally looked good until the dry hot spell hit. Yields have been very reflective of that.”

Herefordshire

Further west, this year’s harvest has been shaped by extremes, from sodden winter fields to bone-dry summer soils at Lower Blakemere Farm in Blakemere, leaving Phil Gorringe with “a real mixed bag”.

The 61ha of Amenity ryegrass seed have produced decent, if unspectacular, results, at 740-990kg/ha.

“But the straw yield was probably a third of what we might expect normally.

“We are ridiculously dry. We’ve had no significant rain for months.”

Last year, the same fields yielded closer to 120kg/ha.

Despite looking promising, Realm vining peas on lighter land failed to deliver, with crops running out of moisture at pod fill.

Just 24ha of the 36ha planted were worth cutting.

In contrast, Jubilee peas grown on heavier land fared better, yielding about 2.4t/ha.

The Tardis and Heraclis winter barley also struggled due to the wet winter.

“We got about 2.5t/ha, down from our usual 7.4t.

“The sample was bold and clean, and the moisture was around 15%, but barley won’t compensate once it’s ruined.”

About 81ha of spring barley is yet to be cut, but expectations are low, with some crops barely a foot tall.

Northumberland

It’s a similar story of mixed results at Rock Estate in Northumberland.

Carl Tuer started with two blocks of Pearl malting barley on a high N contract with Simpsons Malt, which averaged 69kg/hl and 1.8% nitrogen.

“The first 44ha did 8.9t/ha, and the second 89ha did 8.73t/ha, so we are pleased,” he says.

Then came 40ha of Cromwell oats, which came off at 8.87t/ha.

But the Armada oilseed rape was mixed as it suffered from clubroot in earlier sown areas.

The later drilled areas were well over 5t/ha, but the average is down at 4t/ha.

On 7 August, Carl started sowing Crusoe oilseed rape, which is clubroot resistant.

“This is something that has never been needed in the past.”

Wheat harvest got under way on 5 August in an 80ha block of second wheats – a mix of Gleam and Beowulf – which has done close to 10t/ha.

The second wheat block of Illuminate on some slightly lighter ground is not as good.

There is 330ha of wheat left, which he hopes to cut soon.

Buckinghamshire

Down at Aston Clinton, harvest is nearly wrapped-up at College Farm.

Joe Evett started cutting very early – 26 July – following the warm and dry weather, which hasn’t done the wheat any favours.

The 263ha of Zyatt, Skyfall and Cheer winter milling wheat averaged just 5.5t/ha, with specific weights on light land as low as 66kg/hl.

“Most of the wheat looks good quality, but we had one poor sample and that will either have to go through a cleaner or for feed.”

Don Evett, who turned 96 on 9 August, is still driving the Claas combine and hoped to finish the final 28ha of milling wheat and a small area of spring wheat over the weekend.