Large quantities of straw have been pleasing for Chris Sheldon of WH Jaques and Sons in Skegness, Lincolnshire, despite poor grain quality.

“As we have a lot of livestock on the farm, we buy in straw from neighbours, but I think we may have spoken for a little too much now as straw yields have been really pleasing on our own land,” he said.

But while straw yields had been good, grain yields were not as pleasing.

“We’re doing about 7t/ha on wheat and because we’ve been pretty unlucky with frequent showers, we’ve only cut 6ha so far.”

Because he only grew wheat across the whole farm, Mr Sheldon only started combining last week, and he reckoned it could be a day or two before conditions allowed the combine out again.

“It’s not too bad as it’s allowed us plenty of time to load all the bales from other peoples’ land that they want to drill rapeseed on, but the combine only came out for one afternoon last week and it hasn’t moved since.”

While only a few tonnes of wheat had been cut so far, strong prices were starting to change Mr Sheldon’s marketing strategy.

“I think we will sell all the wheat this year rather than keep some for rolling as cattle feed, mainly due to the high price,” he said.

“Yields are poor compared to other years but everyone is in the same boat this year. Hopefully the prices will make up for it.”

Crop: Winter Wheat
Varieties: Diego, Battalion and Santiago
Area: 76ha
Yield: 7t/ha