Harvest 2019 hold-up continues as growers face wettest ever August

Growers have been plagued by heavy and widespread showers for the last week and, with no let-up in the conditions forecast, many are bracing themselves for more turbulence.

Frontier agronomist Andrew Roy, who covers North Yorkshire, Durham and Northumberland, described the situation as ‘pretty demoralising’.

Most barley and oilseed rape has been cut in North Yorkshire and barley was 80-90 per cent cut in Durham. About 60-70 per cent of the OSR crop had been harvested, but progress was much slower in Northumberland.

Mr Roy said yields had been exceptional for barley and most OSR had been ‘pretty good as well’.

However, soil conditions were extremely wet and there was anxiety about reaching crops still to harvest and drilling OSR.

Intense rainfall in some parts of North Yorkshire in recent weeks has also led to lodging in some wheat crops, Mr Roy added.

Abandon

Russell McKenzie, Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, was forced to abandon combining on Monday (August 12), with his wheat harvest about 50 per cent complete.

He said: “We had 5mm of rain on Sunday, more than we were expecting, which messed things up. We had 20-30mm the other week and the high winds on Saturday had dried it out, but we were pushed back to square one.”