The UK wheat harvest has been progressing steadily, but early reports on quality have been poor, according to the latest ADAS report, published yesterday (23 August).

Twenty-five per cent of the wheat area in Great Britain had been harvested by 21 August, with the majority of the progress being made in the south east, south west and eastern regions of England.

According to the HGCA, at this point last year 70% of the GB wheat had been harvested, but it still remains ahead of the severely delayed harvest in 2008.

“The fears of poor yields are being realised, although there are some respectable yields and good-quality samples,” noted the report.

The reports so far show early yields to be very variable. “In the Eastern region – especially Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex – there have been some above-average yields of good quality wheat. However, further west the yields and quality become more variable.”

It added that the quality of the wheat samples harvested to date had been poor, but that quality information was only available for a small number of early harvested crops to date, so should be treated with caution.

There are already reports of rejections or deductions being made on both feed and milling samples, due to low specific weights, said ADAS. Hagberg falling numbers are mostly within specification, but are lower than normal, while protein levels are good ranging from 12-14.5%.

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