After the floods: Less wheat in a “catastrophic year” on farms

Since then, the sun has come out and what wheat they could sow now looks OK.

“Don’t be fooled,” he says with a rueful smile. “It’s thin and full of weeds we couldn’t spray because the ground was so wet we couldn’t get a tractor on.”

The ears are golden now, and Mike picks a handful of grains to test for moisture.

He grinds them in a handheld device, which will tell him how moist the wheat still is.

“I need 15% max,” he shows me.

“But look – that’s still 19%, way too high.”

Just then, it starts to drizzle again.

“We need a few good solid sunny days to dry this, before we can cut it,” he tells me, looking at the dark clouds overhead.

It is anxious, stressful work, but this is actually a normal West Country harvest routine.

August is often wet, harvest always a tricky juggle.

Farmers wait for the perfect weather window, then crank up the combine, whatever the day or the hour, to get the harvest home.