While this year’s harvest in the UK got off to a fast start, intermittent and often heavy rainfall has slowed progress.
That’s according to the second harvest report of 2025 published by the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB).
It showed that there is a noticeable slowdown from the week ending July 16, to the current week, driven by rainfall over the past weekend (July 19-20). In many cases, combining has not restarted since Friday, July 18.
A particularly heavy band of rain moved across Northern Ireland, northern England and Scotland on Monday and Tuesday this week, further stalling progress.
Harvest quality
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 according to the AHDB. There is significant variation in yield trends both within regions and within farms.
AHDB senior cereals & oilseeds analyst, Helen Plant 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.”
Winter barley harvest was 92% complete by Wednesday, July 23. The only UK areas still harvesting were Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Yields have been highly variable; reports on farm vary from 29% under the five-year average to 19% 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, according to the AHDB.
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% 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.
