Cereal crops devastated by rain (From Western Telegraph)

Cereal crops devastated by rain

6:33pm Monday 15th September 2008 in News

Hundreds of acres of cereals are still standing on Pembrokeshire farms — and the disastrous autumn harvest is already impacting on next spring’s crops.

In a good year most autumn crops would have been combined before the start of September and planting would be well underway for next season’s harvest.

But one of the wettest Augusts on record, and a very wet start to this month, means a huge percentage of cereals have yet to be cut and crops like oil seed rape are still waiting to be planted.

Mansel and Meurig Raymond, who are among Pembrokeshire’s biggest arable growers, have only managed to combine 60% of their crop.

This means they have 700 acres still standing and the quality of the crop is deteriorating every day.

“We have noticed a big deterioration in the last few days, there has been some sprouting in the crop,” said Mansel.

The grain he has been able to combine has been coming off the fields at 25% moisture which means drying costs of around £15 a tonne.

He added: “Any margin is being taken away by the cost of drying and the extra work involved.

“Farmers were looking forward to a good harvest. The crops went into the ground in good conditions and did well in the summer. The harvest was looking promising. But Mother Nature has taken over and we have been left fighting the elements.

“We would usually be drilling oil seed rape by now but the land is just too wet.”

In Pembrokeshire the majority of cereals are grown for livestock feed.

The poor quality of milling wheat grown in other parts of the UK has meant some of it is being sold into the feed market, with the consequential impact on price.

Richard Carlisle, arable manager at Clynderwen and Cardiganshire Farmers, said feed wheat prices were currently around £105/£110 a tonne, ex-farm.

“Farmers need at least three decent days of sunshine to get their crops cut but the forecast isn’t looking good at the moment,” he said.