A Berkshire farm manager has been counting the cost of this year’s dry conditions, harvesting stunted and stressed wheat crops.  

The Benham Estate, a mixed farm on the outskirts of Newbury operating as part of Sir Richard Sutton Ltd, received only 49mm of rain from the start of March until harvest.  

“Most of the soils here are light, loamy and free draining, which dry out quickly each season,” farm manager Luke Robinson says.

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Early wheat

The lack of rain meant this year’s wheat harvest started two weeks earlier than usual for the team at Benham Estate.

Due to the lighter land, only milling-spec wheat is generally grown, with the best-performing so far being the Group 1 wheat on the better land following peas.

The team is now well into the wheat and currently cutting Crusoe on the most drought affected block of land.

“This crop looked really good in March, one of the best-looking crops on the farm, but due to the lack of rain since, it has stunted and stressed the crop, leading to aborted grain sites and short straw,” Luke says.

This year’s Crusoe was drilled on 2 October using an 8m tine drill following an application of biosolids.

Despite yields on the most drought-affected land being down 35% compared with the five-year average, early samples have shown ­proteins above 14%, specific weights above 76kg/hl and a Hagberg falling number over 370, meaning it will meet milling standards.

Good Cheer

The variety Cheer was grown for the first time this year and is looking to have been successful, with yields of 8-11t/ha.

The crop was sown on better performing land with higher organic matter. It’s a variety Luke plans to continue growing next year. He has also ordered some Vibe seed to trial next season.

Also new to the farm this year was a Group 2 blend of Mayflower, Extase and Palladium.

The idea for the blend was to reduce fungicide inputs due to greater genetic diversity in the crop, and so increase the crop’s resilience to disease.

Notably, the blend saved the farm a T0 and T1 fungicide compared with the straight crop of Extase.

There has also been very little sign of septoria this season, and very little brown rust, which allowed for a reduced fungicide spend.

“On all our wheats we combined the T2 and T3 spray into one timing, so effectively cutting out one application and products used included prothioconazole, tebuconazole and azoxystrobin rather than expensive SDHIs due to the very low septoria pressure,” says Luke.

Consequently, the fungicide spend on the Crusoe this year was reduced by about £85/ha compared with 2024.

However, the savings in variable costs will not fully compensate for the reduced yields.

OSR grazing

In contrast to the wheat, the team at Benham has seen some of the best oilseed rape yields this year, averaging 4t/ha on early drilled crops following winter barley.  

This year, they trialled grazing an OSR crop to provide extra forage for fattening lambs and reduce disease and pest pressures such as phoma and cabbage stem flea beetle.

“If we can maintain the same yields and fatten a load of lambs on it, it’s fantastic,” he says. Additionally, this will add organic matter to the soils and reduce fungicide use, helping to cut input costs. 

Despite initial damage from grazing and frost, yields remained consistent between lightly and heavily grazed fields.

However, they have seen a slight reduction in yield in grazed OSR fields compared with the non-grazed fields.

Luke believes this could be due to the grazing opening up the crop to increased pigeon damage in the spring. The team plan to repeat the grazing trial again this year and evaluate results.