Harvest is two to three days behind normal at Doug Fowlie’s Millhill Farm, Longside, Aberdeenshire, but is now progressing well.

“It’s a beautiful day today (3 September) and it’s all going well.”

He had just started spring barley and winter wheat, having finished oilseed rape and winter barley.

“The Zebedee wheat is very early and we cut it before the spring barley – we’ve never done that before.”

Despite slightly low bushelweights, yields were good at 8.6-10tha (3.5-4t/acre), with a lot of straw, he said.

But Optic spring barley was disappointing, at just 5t/ha (2t/acre). “It should be a good malting sample though.

“Retriever winter barley was our best ever – it was extremely good at 10t/ha (4t/acre), and quality was good, too.”

Mendel oilseed rape had again disappointed. “We used to get 4.4t/ha (1.8t/acre) but we have club root problems and now we’re just getting 3.5t/ha (1.4t/acre),” said Mr Fowlie.

“We are growing Cracker this year – but we had bad weather after sowing it and couldn’t get on to spray, which is a bad start.”

With about a third of harvest left to go, progress was only slightly later than normal. “It’s amazing how quickly we’ll fire through it now the weather is good.”

Crop: Winter wheat
Variety: Zebedee
Area: 40ha (100 acres)
Yield: 8.6-10t/ha (3.5-4t/acre)

Crop: Spring barley
Variety: Optic
Yield: 5t/ha (2t/acre)

Crop: Oilseed rape
Variety: Mendel
Yield: 3.5t/ha (1.4t/acre)

Crop: Winter barley
Variety: Retriever
Yield: 10t/ha (4t/acre)