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

In a good year most crops of winter wheat and spring barley 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 – three inches was recorded over one three-day period – has resulted in a significant percentage of the crop yet to be cut and this is delaying autumn planting and cultivation.

Letterston-based crop consultant Sarah Whitfield said it was a depressing situation with disease a real threat.

“My biggest worry at the moment is that the wet conditions are going to result in diseases like sooty mould setting in which will affect the quality of the grain and the straw,’’ said Sarah.

“All my crops have had good fungicide regimes but nothing can keep disease out now because the crops should have been harvested. The crops need sunshine right now.’’

At Crug-Las Farm, near Solva, arable grower Perkin Evans still has half his winter wheat crop to harvest and some spring barley too. He grows 900 acres of combinable crops and until the August rain set in, the harvest had been looking promising.

“We hit five tonnes of wheat an acre, we have never done that before. It is very frustrating that we can’t harvest because we have had some of our best yields this year,’’ said Perkin, who chairs NFU Cymru’s Combinable Crops and Horticulture Working Group.

“We need these high yields because the price is so poor but if this wet spell continues there is a real possibility that we will lose some of it because it gets to a stage where the grain will drop out of the head.’’

Late harvesting will have a knock-on impact on the autumn cultivation and planting workload.

“We have had summers like this before and got through them the cost of seed, fertiliser and chemicals have gone up and the price has come down and it all has a knock-on effect,’’ said Perkin.

One of the biggest impacts of working the ground in the wet is soil compaction, which adds to the effects of the heavy rain by increasing waterlogging. The result of this could be a winter legacy of saturated soils and water ponding with a net effect of depletion in soil fertility.

* NFU Cymru is encouraging farmers to take part in its annual harvest survey which reflects on issues such as the effect of extreme weather on cereals and oilseeds, the increased winter crop areas and decreased planting of spring crops, and the effect difficult early season conditions have had on crop disease pressure. The survey is available online on the NFU Cymru website www.nfu-cymru.org.uk