Winter bean harvest comes early in northern Kent

The winter bean harvest is early this season in northern Kent with one crop being cut some two weeks ahead of schedule.

The lack of rain in this traditionally dry area has brought the crop forward and farm manager Mark Bowsher-Gibbs is busy cutting the variety Wizard at an average yield of 4.2t/ha.

“The dry summer has brought an early harvest and small-sized beans, but it is still yielding a reasonable crop,” he tells Farmers Weekly.

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The winter bean harvest is normally expected in the first week of September, but this year is slotting in between the already-harvested breadmaking wheats Cordiale and Skyfall and ahead of the start of cutting feed wheats.

Some 100ha of winter beans are grown on the farm, but this area is likely to rise this autumn at the expense of oilseed rape, due to the fall in the price of rapeseed.

Mr Bowsher-Gibbs says winter beans are well suited to the brick earth loamy soils on the 1,750ha GH Dean estate based at Hempstead Farm, just a mile east of Sittingbourne.

The area of combinable crops amounts to 1,100ha, with the rest of the land growing apples, pears and cherries, along with grassland for sheep grazing.