The very wet autumn followed by long cold spring have made themselves felt in agricultural landscape. We are pre-harvest with patchy uneven crops on the turn at the same time. The winter sown crops are clearly behind and very uneven, especially the winter oilseed-rape. Harvest should be under way, but crops are still green. The oilseed-rape will be desiccated [sprayed to kill off the green material] on a crop by crop basis to try to optimise the harvest of the majority of the crop, but some will over-ripe and shed and yet other areas will be under-ripe.

Winter-wheat uneven ripening 30th July	Winter oilseed-rape uneven ripening 30th July
Spring combine-able peas ripening 30th July	Spring barley ripening 30th July

The practical implication is that the harvest workload is accumulating into a peak  work load going into September.  Farmers should cope given descent dry weather, long days, and ample equipment capacity.  Last year’s wet autumn meant that  about 10% of land was not planted before winter and has been put into spring crops. Its a very finely balanced race against the clock to get through the harvest workload to establish new crops before condition deteriorate in the autumn/winter.

30th July –extensive headland damage from deer grazing into the crop due to the long slow spring

The hot days in early July lead to a bumper haylage crop –30th July

So far this summer has been good for grass and grazing stock –30th July

This year is the first time i have ever seem ripe wild cherries in pickable abundance