It has been a harvest of two halves with divides in geography and drilling season.  The East had pretty benign harvest conditions and the West had a very catchy harvest.  There has also been a significant different between performance of winter drilled and spring drilled crops. 

A later harvest than usual with rain in the West delaying progress but fortunately the majority of spring drilled crops were not really mature until into September.  They were not really fit through the wet late August / early September and so the better weather in mid -September weather was a blessing for completing harvest.  

 Winter crops seemed to have suffered worse due to the very wet season than the spring crops.  Winter crops sat wet and anaerobic for long periods and with wetter areas of fields failing completely.  Low light levels through June seemingly also had an effect and this has effected yield and quality.   Wheat yields particularly have suffered with winter oats seeming to cope with the poor conditions better and whilst wheat yields are well below average winter oat yields are about average or slightly below.  The exception being on light-land farms which seem to have been better.  One farm in Norfolk, for whom moisture would usually be a limiting factor, had plenty of moisture and achieved 7t / ha of winter wheat! 

 Spring crops fared better.  Despite the late drilling of many  crops due to very wet spring conditions once drilled the crops had warm, good growing conditions including nighttime temperatures and didn’t seem to be effected by the low June light levels.  They seemingly took advantage of the heat and sunshine through July and early August.  Early indicnations as we still have plenty of samples to test we are seeing good spring wheat proteins (12%+), although samples in the East seem to be a little light on bushel weight whilst those further West seem better.

Once again harvest is something of a mixed bag!  Prices have risen slightly but remain unexciting.  Feed wheat is £270 - £275 ex farm with feed oats and barley prices based on these levels.  Buyers are sow to come to the market as they are uncertain about demand and imported supplies are available.

We have once again secured a good contract for lo-protein wheat for the milling market and this provides a market for good bold samples of winter wheat providing a premium over the feed market.

Generally spring oat quality is good this year reversing the trend of the last couple of years.  One farmer who has shifted emphasis from spring oats to winter was questioning this decision but dangerous to put too much emphasis on farm planning after