Sunflowers thrive as heatwave hits wheat, farmer says

The exceptionally hot and dry summer has left farmers facing reduced yields and an increased risk of field fires, meaning they have to diversify to cope, one Dorset farmer says.

Farmer Peter Snell, who owns North Farm in Horton, Dorset, has been working to adapt by growing a variety of crops able to cope with different weather conditions.

This year, many of his crops have ripened early and his wheat yields are down by 15%. His eight-acre (3.2-hectare) wheat field would usually produce enough flour for about 160,000 loaves of bread, but this year's yield will only be enough for about 136,000 loaves.

However, he says his sunflowers have thrived in the heat and many have grown to 6ft (1.8m) tall.

Snell says he planted about 1.3 million sunflower seeds and he estimates about a million germinated.

"We planted them in the middle of April and there was just enough moisture for them to establish and start to grow," he says.

"Three months later, some of these are 5ft, 6ft high and, in the best parts of the field, they're over my head.

"As the name suggests they love the sun."

The sunflower field, like the rest of the 700-acre (about 280 hectares) farm, has no irrigation and the ground is cracked and dry, but sunflowers, along with maize, quinoa and millet, are more efficient at photosynthesis than wheat and barley so thrive in the summer sun.

Snell said: "This cracking that we can see [in the soil] that you can get your hand right into is a classic, entirely natural process, but this is a natural sort of fissuring of the soil from the dry conditions."

He said: "The extreme heat and dry weather has caused the crops to ripen early but, for those on very drought-prone soils, they would have almost died off rather than ripened."

The risk of fire is also an ongoing concern during the summer months.

Arable operator Tom Hull says he has to be more cautious when cleaning the combine harvester.

"We are using an air compressor to blow off the dust and things," he says.

"We're running with a IBC [intermediate bulk container] full of water on the front of the other tractor that I'm unloading into just in case there was a fire, so we've got some water at hand in case we can stop it, particularly if it's a field fire."

Snell is already planning for the next growing season.

He adds: "I think most farmers are optimists, so we always hope for a better year and we roll the dice and sow next year's crops and hope for a better situation."