THE prospects are looking bright for a good harvest this year.

An advantageous euro exchange rate and a virtually disease-free run-up point to a better harvest than last year, and organisers of the annual Farm-way crop variety open day at Croft later this month are in optimistic mood.

Tony Simpson, Farmway commercial manager, said current harvest prices for wheat were £68-£70 a tonne, compared with £52-£54 last year.

The Scottish distilling market would be looking for supplies from this region to offset its own shortage of plantings, but the main factor for stronger prices was the pound/euro exchange rate.

"Last year we were also under a lot of pressure from the Black Sea countries but this time they have suffered a lot of winter kill," he said.

Host farmer Anthony Hornshaw said all the crops were looking good. "It has been the easiest year for a long time from a disease point of view," he said. "It has just not been a problem."

The open day will feature nine varieties of oilseed rape, eightof barley, and ten wheats, each grown in acre blocks.

ARC staff will also demonstrate the latest Home Grown Cereals Authority funded variety trials of wheat and barley.

Brian Grealy, Countrywide Farmers' key account manager, said the oilseed rape varieties included Pollen, which was last year's highest-yielding conventional rape in the ARC fully replicated trials.

"It is a good sound variety," he said. "In the south it has been consistent, both here and in Northern France. It is never going to let you down; there are no weaknesses against it."

The wheats include Einstein, a new group 2 variety from Nickerson, commercially available for the first time and recommended for the whole of the UK.

It is a hard milling wheat with flour characteristics similar to Charger, and is potentially suitable for home bread-making and for export for blending and perhaps bread-making. It has a short straw and no major disease weaknesses.

"It is the group 2 sector that the market is short of," said Mr Grealy. "We have to say to farmers that they should grow something the market wants and at the moment we are short of grade 2.

"We need to get more farmers to grow more acres."

Mr Hornshaw believed Einstein was an exciting variety because it had both yield and quality.

He said Napier had done particularly well at Croft and was his preferred first choice as a second wheat.

Another new wheat on show is Robigus, from CPB Twyford. It has a full UK recommendation and is a soft-milling nabim group 3 wheat whose treated yield has been above the highest-yielding feed varieties on the recommended list. It has good resistance to mildew, brown rust, septoria nodorum and septoria tritici but is very susceptible to yellow rust.

Among the barley plots is Pict, a six-row variety which produces grain with specific weights similar to two-row varieties. Only moderately stiff-strawed, its UK yields have been only 1pc behind Siberia, the leading six-row variety and it has better overall disease resistance than Siberia.

Mr Simpson and Mr Grealy both urged farmers wanting to plant Pearl to place orders quickly. It accounted for 47pc of the winter barley tonnage certified ex-harvest in 2002 and was in great demand. The danger now is that there may not be enough to meet demand.

The crop variety open day is at Grange Farm, Croft, on Friday, June 27, between noon and 6pm. It includes a Sinar moisture meter clinic where meters will be tested free of charge. Steak sandwiches will be served from noon and refreshments will be available all afternoon.

Last year's event attracted more than 400 farmers. It is believed to be the biggest event of its kind in the region. More details are available from Farmway Seeds Department on 01325 504 600