Unusual harvest but average yields for Cambs farm
14th August 2025
As harvest concludes at Tom Martin’s farm in Cambridgeshire, he notes that while they’ve seen fairly average yields, the order in which crops were harvested was highly unusual.
Harvesting of winter barley, winter wheat, winter beans and spring barley concluded at Tom Martin’s farm early this week – with yields holding up despite the current drought causing heavy losses for some farms.
Tom, also known as Farmer Tom online, told Farmers Guide they are lucky to have had an average harvest, while some farms are reporting losses of as much as 20-30% – and in fact the areas that have not yielded so well are the result of wet conditions last autumn and winter, rather than the drought.
Despite this, it was a very variable harvest in terms of yields, with wheat ranging from 4–9+ tonnes per hectare. The average for the farm is 7.5–7t/ha. “We expect a little bit of variability but that’s far more variable than we normally see,” he commented.
Winter beans and spring barley did a little better than expected but still within the broad range of average, and winter wheat and winter barley were average overall.
At the lowest moisture level, wheat and barley were cut at 10–11% but there was barely a single load over 15% – whereas there have been years they were happy to go at 16%.
However, environmental crops at the farm, which is in SFI, have seen very poor establishment this year due to the lack of rain.
Oilseed rape was not included in the rotation this year, though 60ha has been drilled for next year. Tom noted: “Sadly it’s the one thing that’s performed well this year. That’s a real irony.”
Unusual order
Harvest was widely reported to have started and finished very early for many farms – but but for Village Farm, a “murky week” in the middle meant they finished on 11th August rather than in July. It’s not particularly early for the farm, as in the past few years they’ve completed harvest as early as 2nd August.
All that remains to harvest now is some buckwheat in September.
What was unusual though, was the order of ripening. “We typically start with the barley and the rape seed, move on to the wheat, then we finish with the spring barley and then the beans.
“This year we were doing the beans before the wheat, the spring barley was done in the middle of the wheat, and we finished with a crop of milling wheat which typically would be in the shed earlier on.
“The variability, the range and the ordering were most unusual.”
READ MORE: Future SFI must learn from drought crisis
READ MORE: Winter barley and OSR harvests now complete
Nature’s growth regulator
Drilling dates for the crops were also hugely variable, with the winter barley in by the first week of October and the wheat any time across the whole of October and into November.
Long gone are the days when the autumn planting season took only 2-3 weeks, Tom added. “It now seems like we’ve got the drill on the back of the tractor for two months trying to get a couple of things in in September, and then in early November we’re still trying to eke in a few extra acres where it’s dry enough.”
On a positive note, there was very little weed and disease pressure this season – the farm has been trying to reduce inputs and in some cases struggled with ergot, owing to black-grass etc, but this year there was none at all – “thanks to nature’s growth regulator, drought”, Tom added.
Concerns over government policy
Having not been hit too hard in terms of yields, the bigger concerns now are world prices and the looming Autumn Budget, Tom said.
“Since it became apparent that the funding gap is £40bn or £50bn, with all the promises the government made about not raising income tax, I think they’ll be looking at absolutely everything, from Defra budgets to red diesel, capital gains tax. It just feels like they’re clutching at straws.”
Read more harvest news.
