Harvest is drawing to a close for Stephen Whitby at Rowley Farm, Wexham, Slough, and it won’t be long until the combine is back in the shed for another year.

“I think we’ll have another four or five days left and then we’ll be finished,” he said. “We’ve been pretty fortunate that it’s rained all around us but not on us.”

So far Mr Whitby had managed to cut 240ha of winter wheat, and was hoping to continue cutting 30ha of oats today (17 August).

“We got a very early start on the wheat, cutting on 28 July,” he said.

But while combining had progressed well, yields weren’t as impressive as Mr Whitby had expected.

“Wheat has probably done under 7.5t/ha, with bushel weights between 70 and 74kg/hl, rising to some at 80kg/hl.

“I really expected more yield,” he added. “Quality wise, it was a mixed bag, especially with wheat as there was a bit of fusarium around.”

When Mr Whitby started cutting wheat moisture was down at 10%, but moistures had gradually increased since.

Surprisingly, his rapeseed harvest was still being hampered, with unripe crops and green stems.

“We had a go at some rapeseed but it just wasn’t quite ready so we went onto the oats, which are doing well.”

Once the oats were finished he would have just 80ha of spring barley, rapeseed and linseed left to go.

Crop: Winter Wheat
Variety: Gallant and Cordiale
Area: 240ha
Yield: <7.5t/ha