After the June heatwave hastened the harvest, the combine rolled onto the fields this week at the Salle Estate near Reepham, this year's winner of the coveted Norfolk Farm Business Competition.

Farm and estate manager Andrew Peal said his first cereal crop to be harvested was seed barley, whose yields are down by as much as 20pc in "extremely challenging conditions".

"We're not surprised with the yields, and that's probably because we've had 60pc of our average rainfall in the key growing months - April, May and June - compared to the average of the last last five years,........

© Eastern Daily Press