Lincolnshire grower Mark Ireland had finished cutting crops on Grange Farm a while ago and was now doing odd bits for other growers. He said there was only two or three percent of wheat remaining uncut in his own area of Sleaford, but he estimated 15% of wheat remained by the Lincolnshire coast.

“It has been an earlier harvest but we’ve normally finished by now anyway. They’re always behind on the coast, but since the crops are all ripe they would prefer it to be in by now.”

He said quality had deteriorated badly on remaining crops, but bushel weights had been low on his own wheat. He had heard sprouting was a problem in the area because harvest was so stop-start at the moment due to showers.

“When I was in Norfolk last week certainly the vast majority of crops were leaning quite badly – they are overly fit.”

Mr Ireland was not worried by the possible lack of seed due to the weather because he used home-grown seed.

He was making steady progress through drilling oilseed rape, but said his part of the country had had more rain than most making some conditions too wet.

“Some fields are wetter than we would have liked, others are fine, but it is going in and growing fine, so that’s the main thing.”