AS TEMPERATURES have soared in recent weeks the North-East has seen one of the earliest and fastest harvests ever.

With combines out in force prior to the downpours of Sunday and Monday, many farmers enjoyed the added bonus of reduced drying costs due to the hot conditions.

David Maughan, chairman of the NFU Durham and North Riding County branch, said: "We have got about 40pc of the harvest in. We collected the barley in July and the oilseed rape straight after. The barley crops were good but the rape yields are excellent.

"We started harvesting the wheat about a week ago. Normally it wouldn't have been ready but good progress has been made. Because of the high temperatures a lot of the crops that have come off are very dry saving costs.

"Dry conditions can cause grain to fail but the wheat yields have been ok.

"The bushel weights have been very good," he added. "They have weighed well and we are getting more tonnage on a trailer.

"We are hearing examples of good yields coming through. They are ranging up to 4.5t/ha but I cannot say what the average is yet until the harvests are in. But we are much more relaxed about it this year."

Mr Maughan said it had been a strange growing year.

"We had a wet autumn last year then a long dry spell in March. We were concerned about the second wheat yields but they are not as bad as we thought. The yields have been good so far."

Mr Maughan said that the thunderstorms which hit the North-East on Sunday had halted progress. He said that one farmer in Stokesley had lost some of the ripe grain from crops because of giant hail stones and three inches of rain.

Robin Twizell, from RMD Agriculture, who compiles the D&S Times grain report, said: "Harvesting has gone quite well so far. Up until the bad weather this weekend the yield quality has been good so the prices are going up.

"But if we start getting a lot of warm and wet weather like we have recently it could affect the crops and our exports.

Mr Twizell said in Europe weather conditions had been more severe. The harvest in Germany was down 11pc and in France down 17pc. Russia and the Ukraine were down 50 or 60pc.

"Our market is going up a lot on price and we are seeing a demand to export grain to the countries who we imported from last year.

He said wheat yields were in line with expectations but oilseed rape yields was surprisingly good. Barley was good quality but the yield was no better than average..

"This year's harvest has been one of the fastest and one of the easiest and the yields have come in dry so farmers haven't had to incur the cost of drying it out.

He urged farmers to be careful about crop storage. "The worrying aspect is that the crops put into store must be ventilated or they will go off," he said. Farmers had to pay attention to temperatures.