‘The picture is mixed’: Heavy rain slows down harvest progress
25th July 2025
Although this year’s harvest kicked off earlier than usual, intermittent and often heavy rainfall has slowed the progress, according to the AHDB’s second harvest report of 2025.
There is a noticeable slowdown from the week ending 16th July to the current week, driven by rainfall over the past weekend. In many cases, combining has not restarted since Friday, 18th July, AHDB said.
A particularly heavy band of rain moved across Northern Ireland, northern England and Scotland on Monday and Tuesday this week, further stalling progress.
With more rain forecast, some growers have been cutting crops at higher moistures, where wet weather is likely to affect quality (milling wheat) or yield (oilseed rape and pulses). At this point, there is no consistent picture of yields for the UK. There is significant variation in yield trends both within regions and within farms.
Helen Plant, AHDB senior cereals & oilseeds analyst, said: “The picture is mixed, with different results across the country. So far, oilseed rape and winter barley yields are encouraging, while early winter wheat yields are below average.
“However, like oats and spring barley, the winter wheat harvest is still in the initial stages. With the weather so changeable, it’s very difficult to predict the final results at this stage.”
READ MORE: Harvest update: Oat yields below average in Northamptonshire
Very encouraging winter oilseed rape yields
The winter barley harvest was 92 percent complete by 23rd July. The only UK areas still harvesting were Scotland and Northern Ireland. Yields have been highly variable; reports on farms vary from 29 percent under the five-year average to 19 percent over.
Overall, the UK winter barley yield is in line with the five-year average at 6.7t/ha. The quality is generally good, but – given the hot, dry spring/early summer – grain nitrogen levels are high. This may be challenging for some malting barley end markets.
AHDB reported that winter oilseed rape yields have been very encouraging for the most part, with over half (54%) of the UK area harvested; quality is good too. The 2025 UK average yield is estimated to be 3.76t/ha, 21 percent above the five-year average UK yield of 3.11t/ha. Rainfall has resulted in some planting of next year’s oilseed rape crop.
Winter wheat, oat and spring barley harvesting is underway but still at early stages, so information to date does not reliably point to the total UK crop. Early winter wheat yields have so far been disappointing, though quality is reported to be good for samples processed so far.
The third harvest 2025 report will be published on Friday, 8th August.
READ MORE: Harvest update: ‘It’s the earliest harvest we’ve ever had’
READ MORE: First harvest report of 2025 released earlier due to long dry spell
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