Despite the fourth wettest June this century, and July having been little better, combines are at last taking to the fields to bring in this year's harvest.

Deborah Cavanagh, of the National Farmers Union in York, said: "We're facing a very difficult harvest time. It's worse than we'd expected. Much of the UK has had double the usual rainfall."

She warned that the wet weather meant crops were being flattened by rain and fungal diseases would affect yields.

"This comes at a time when farming is having a very bad time anyway with the effects of the strong pound."

Kevin Kendall, head of agriculture at Askham Bryan College, near York, said: "With the weather being what it has, it's held it up a lot."

"People are running out between the showers and doing a bit. The trouble is the moisture content of the crop; if you're combining barley and it's over 15 per cent moisture, it has to be put through a drier, which costs money."

"The harvest's late but its not critical yet. We hope to be combining barley here later this week."

Mr Kendall added that if wet weather continued to delay the harvest, there could be problems with mould, unharvested crops ripening and shedding prematurely and lodging crops being flattened.

Agricultural suppliers Cargill plc has issued a warning about the state of crops across the UK.

"The stress of a difficult year is now clearly visible in wheat crops, with lodging, foliar disease, take-all, fusarium, and eyespot apparent across much of the North," they warn.

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