Harvest is making slow progress in Durham, with mixed results so far in winter barley and oilseed rape.

Farmway’s central store at Piercebridge had only taken in 1511t of winter barley and 213t of oilseed rape by Wednesday (8 August), said silo manager Andrew Darling.

“So far the barley is averaging 17% moisture and 62.9kg/hl. Yields have been alright, averaging about 7.5t/ha.

“But the bushel weights on six row hybrids are drastically struggling, with Volume and Element averaging mid to high 50s and some even going into the lab below 50kg/hl, although they don’t go into store,” he added.

“Weights on six row conventional varieties like Sequel are faring much better, but are still in the low 60s.”

While Mr Darling was only quarter of the way through barley intake, he hoped the weather would now improve, and expected more growers to get cutting this weekend.

“We have hardly started oilseed rape yet this year. This weekend will be the three week mark for the some of the early sprayed off crops, and, as we’ve had a mixed amount of sun and rain, three weeks will be the minimum needed.” 

So far, rapeseed had been coming in at 13% moisture.

Oil contents were two percentage points down on last year, at about 42.5% once dried down to 9% moisture, but the samples were clean, with 1.7% admixture.

“Cantana and Excalibur are two well-liked varieties around here and are the varieties we’ve seen so far.”