Scotland's Harvest Landward

Scotland is a nation of farmers.

For thousands of years, they have managed the land

to produce grain for our bread, oats for our porridge

and barley for our beer and whisky.

I want to show you how they do it.

I've been spending the summer with three of Scotland's farming families

in the north, the east and the west.

They've invited us into their homes and farms

at the busiest and most stressful time of the year.

Our farmers have to deal with extreme weather...

In reality, it's too bloody wet, isn't it?

A wee puddle here. Ignore that.

That rain will just keep coming.

The hole has been created by the force of the water?

Yes. Completely? Completely. Good God!

..and rely on the support of their families.

It's outwith your control. It's going to happen.

You just absolutely have to make the best of it.

But, above all, it's the story

of the three very different machines they drive.

From the old and battered...

Some holes you can just tape up with duct tape.

..to the latest and greatest.

At the moment, we're processing just over 50 tonnes an hour,

which, that's pretty good going.

Because for modern farmers, the combine harvester is king.

You just cannae go waltzing into it.

If you go too fast and get stuck in the crop, it's not good.

Ah! Come on!

I'll also be dropping in on fruit and veg farms

to hear about the challenges they face.

We're on day 52 of our harvest.

We're very near the end of it,

so all the peas that are left here are all the ones we've got to do.

This is Scotland's Harvest, 2014.

Welcome to the Kintyre peninsula.

Everywhere you look there are stunning land and seascapes.

But it's also a remote and harsh environment

at the mercy of Atlantic storms.

It's not easy to make a living from farming here.

But that's life for Duncan Macalister and his wife Fiona.

Farmers are emotional people.

We do farming because we like what we do.

There's not many farmers are businessmen, I'm afraid.

We do it because we like what we do.

Because it's old, the handbrake will not be on in case it seizes on.

So I'll move it forward, if you can kick that block out

on this side and on the other side.

OK, no problem.

Hope that she will start.

Duncan hasn't started his battered old combine since last year.

ENGINE BOOMS INTO LIFE

Nae bother, eh?!

She's a bonny thing, but she's seen a bit of life!

Started first time, as well! Yeah.

Not that I wasn't expecting that, of course!

She has had some experience in her life by the looks of things, yes?

Yes, it's not just in her youth.

She's a 1984. 1984.

Made in Zweibrucken in West Germany.

But the rust is the biggest problem here.

You can see the obvious rust.

But it's rust in places, the likes of this kind of thing.

You know, the likes of that, when that rusts out.

And, more importantly, in the bottom of the... Under there.

It all rusts out.

I can see a bit of gaffer tape on there. Yeah, that's...

..one of the holes. Indeed.

And when you take her out,

how much work has to be done before she's ready to harvest?

Och, she's about... It depends.

The worst thing we're doing is panel beating.

If we've got to do, you know, mend,

there's one thing we'll need to do is,

that's leaking. I need to see if I can get...

See how bad that's going to be.

But it's not a serious leak. Might get away with that.

In an ideal world, you happen to have some money in your pocket

and, you think, new one.

90 grand. 90 grand?

For a baby like this? Aye.

And you got her for five grand?

I paid five grand for her, aye.

And, realistically, how many years good service

can you see out of her ladyship?

I would think another five, maybe ten.

165 miles northeast, on the Moray Coast...

I like yellow combines.

That's just what I've been used to, which is New Holland.

Other people like other kinds.

And this is a TX32.

It's one of the smaller new ones.

..George Elder is upgrading the combine for his 100-acre farm.

He's spending ?20,000, to get a 1991 model of his favourite make.

Well, it looks clean. It looks really nice,

so it looks as if it's ready to rock'n'roll.

Satisfied, George goes to collect the keys.

This is the precious moment.

Thank you, Brian.

Wish me luck. Aye, good luck!

And I'll get the best of service if it breaks down. I always do.

This is a very big moment, yes.

Yep.

The heart's in the mouth.

There she goes.

Here you go, that's the handbrake warning off.

I'd just to say to anyone who's been held up

by my combine or any other combine on the road

I do apologise, but there are certain things.

It only does maybe 20mph.

You do not want a combine doing 40mph.

Not really supposed to stop in bus stops.

So, there's only certain lay-bys you can stop in that are big enough,

so I apologise now, but my journey

is equally as important as anybody else's.

It's early August and it will be another few days

before George's crop is ready to harvest.

But in East Lothian

an almost new, state-of-the-art combine

has already started work.

What we've got here is a reasonably nice crop of standing spring oats

and the harvest of these is going reasonably well.

Hugh Broad farms 1,400 acres of mixed cereals on his own farm,

and under contract for four neighbouring landowners.

I have one full-time guy on the farm and I then bring in seasonal labour.

The seasonal labour helps with the grain drying and the grain haulage.

This year we've got two harvest students

and my daughter's helping, as well.

OK, if you turn round and head back down the hill

about three-quarters of the way down the other side,

we'll unload a bit more and that'll be that trailer full. OK.

She's not particularly experienced,

but she's actually making great progress.

Her confidence in reversing is not brilliant yet,

but she's actually getting the hang of unloading on the move

and it's actually a great assistance,

because it just buys a little bit more time.

Since its invention, the combine has revolutionised the way we harvest.

It cuts the crop and threshes it, separating the grain from the chaff.

The chaff - or straw - is shunted along a conveyor

and falls out the back of the combine.

The precious grain is transferred to a storage tank.

And when the tank's full, the grain is put in a trailer

and taken back to the farm to be dried.

But today, there's a problem, and Hugh needs to investigate.

Well, we've had a couple of problems with the grain dryer this season.

One was a mechanical problem, which we addressed the other day.

This is an electrical problem.

This dryer was serviced by the manufacturer pre-harvest,

and everything was working absolutely fine five weeks ago

and, in the intervening period, we've had vermin.

Mice have got into this control unit

and they've completely minced the wires.

And there's such a level of damage

that I think we're going to have to replace the unit.

And the electrician's coming up this morning to help us assess it

and we'll see where we go from there.

While the grain that's waiting to be dried

is not of a high-moisture content,

so that's not that pressing,

the grain that we're about to harvest

is likely to be very wet and will need to be dried straightaway.

So we must clear this backlog, to allow us to progress

with the next lot of drying.

I'll be catching up with Hugh and the others later,

as the combines start to roll right across the country.

But there's much more to Scotland's harvest than just cereals.

Fruit and veg are also vital crops.

I'm heading just west of Perth

to see one harvesting operation that starts in early summer.

The pea harvest starts in July

and runs all the way through to September.

The Bruce family have been farming in Perthshire, Angus and Fife

for 50 years, so they should know a thing or two about the humble pea.

I think I'm going to get out the way, sharpish!

Peas can only be grown in a field once every few years.

So, to ensure they have enough land

to grow the peas they need each year,

the Bruce family rent over 7,500 acres on 180 farms.

With this much acreage to cover,

the harvesters need to work around the clock.

It's a good challenge, yeah, definitely.

A challenge for everybody involved, right from the pea samplers

who go out every morning, sample the crop,

right through to everyone here behind us, harvesting and right through...

I'm meeting Bruce Farms Pea and Bean manager, Neil Murray.

If you're starting late June, early July, and running right through

to September, with these six machines, are they running

all the time, 24 hours a day?

Yeah. More or less.

We occasionally have the odd night shift off, but, in the main,

they're running seven days a week, 24 hours.

That's incredible.

So, I guess it really is like a military operation.

Well, we have everything planned out, every single day.

This plan was generated yesterday afternoon.

It tells us where we're going to be through the night,

where we're going to be this morning, when we're going to finish this farm,

and it's pulling the thing forward.

We're on Day 52 of our harvest. We're very near the end of it.

So, all the peas left here are all the ones that we've got to do.

And when do you plan to finish?

We're planning to finish on Friday morning around 4:50am at the moment.

So, what's your market? Who are you selling to?

Our main marketplace is Birds Eye

and we also sell to a packer, who packs for all the retailers.

We're monitoring our quality on a daily basis.

We have our own taste panel.

You have your own taste panel?

People at the farm, sitting there eating peas every day?

Every day, yep! They love it!

DOUGIE LAUGHS

And again, I mean, how do you... how do you educate your palate

to know that it is the right peas at the right time?

Everybody's trained up to do the job

and once you've done it for a little while, it's amazing,

you soon pick out the differences

and get homed in on what we're looking for.

To make the prime market,

the peas have to be frozen within 150 minutes of harvest.

We've been on the road now for 15 minutes.

I reckon the peas have been out the ground for just over an hour.

Still got about 20 miles to go till we get to the factory,

so the clock is ticking.

The load arrives at the cold store in Dundee in good time.

As soon as the peas arrive, a sample is taken for quality control.

What happens to the ones that don't make it in 150 minutes?

They're labelled as being a non-150 minute product

and are, obviously, a lesser grade, lesser quality

and have to go into less premium marketplaces.

Our batch of peas is good to go.

They are sifted, washed, and dried

before heading into the blast freezer.

Our peas have gone from field fresh to frozen in less than 150 minutes.

At night, when you're finished your work, these long hours,

do you go home and have some pea soup

and peas on the side as your vegetable?

Pea soup, I do eat peas quite a lot, yeah. Do you? Yep, definitely!

Today is harvest day.

Yes, first day of the harvest with the new combine.

It's early August and up on the Moray coast,

the weather is warm and dry.

George Elder's son, Hugh, has come back to help with the harvest.

Hugh's a policeman in Aberdeen

and always takes holiday at this time of year to return to the farm.

I've got a touch of PHT at the moment, like.

PHT?

Pre-Harvest Tension!

You get that every year!

Aye, I think so. I do, too!

Until you get going there's always this doubt in the back of your mind

that something's going to go "bang"!

Yeah, you do, you do. In the back of your head. Aye.

It's very quiet.

You can just hear it and no more

but we know the sound, if you know what I mean, so.

George and Hugh have a unique way of telling

when the barley is ready to cut.

I can't actually hear it at the moment, but when it's really ripe,

it clicks. Just a very faint click, isn't it?

Yeah, yeah, I think I can hear it over here.

Aye, you just hear it clicking, it's in the heat

and you know then that it is good to go, like, you know?

I don't know if I can hear it.

Very faintly.

My hearing's better than yours, actually. I can hear it!

Right, OK, OK!

GEORGE LAUGHS

Start her up and hope for the best, eh? See how we go.

First of the first, today. Big day.

ENGINE ROARS

That's the combine started.

Basically, what happens, he has to do a couple of laps.

I can't go in the field at the moment

because there's, literally, no space for me to go in the fields

because I'd be driving it over the grain,

so I'll wait out here while he cuts a couple of laps.

Nice combine, nice to drive.

Nice crop of barley coming in.

The weather conditions could not be better, really, so it's ideal.

Ideal, yes. Everything's going very smoothly!

So, quite happy.

Over in Kintyre, there's another two weeks to wait

until harvesting can begin.

Duncan Macallister and his wife Fiona mainly farm beef cattle.

He feeds the cattle on the barley he grows.

145-150 go to the bull every year out of 2,000 heifers.

And I'm aiming to sell about 120 a year

and retain 25-30 as breeding replacements to rejuvenate my herd.

That's what the target is.

This is the cash.

For want of a better description.

This is the end, this is what pays the bills.

And feeds me. That and the subsidy, of course!

But we've still got to sell animals, too.

Fiona has recently given up her job as a teacher

to help out on the farm.

This'll be my first harvest, not working, so...

Making the tea.

And driving tractors,

I think, this time.

Normally I manage to avoid it.

Perfect, let's go.

He gets pretty stressed with the weather and the rain and the wind.

And sleepless nights when he hears the rain and the wind.

Yeah, it's stressful for him.

And the mood's not good.

HE WHISTLES

Come on!

He's like a bag of bad tempers until it's finished.

What's that? Oh, I can get bad-tempered, aye!

I can get bad-tempered, all right.

Same as everybody else.

Right, the going's good, then. Come on, girls. Here we go.

Come on!

Duncan mixes his barley with soya and other ingredients to feed

his cattle through the winter and supplement their diet in the summer.

He is constantly tweaking the mixture to get it as good as he can.

There's an expression that my bank manager likes to use.

"If you aye did what you aye did,

"you'll aye get what you aye got."

In my world, that isn't good enough.

I like to try and improve my lot, and make myself more efficient,

and have my farm business more efficient.

It doesn't always work, but that's what we're trying to achieve,

trying to better yourself in farming.

Not for fashion, but to make a better job,

and, in turn, have a better financial reward.

However hard Duncan tries, some things are outwith his control.

To some extent, the timing of the harvest

depends when the crop was sown.

But the weather is the other vital ingredient.

Here in Scotland it's the west coast which bears the brunt

of the weather fronts, rolling in from the Atlantic.

That's why it's wetter in the west.

And as the clouds pass over the country,

much of the rain falls on the mountains.

That leaves the eastern half of the country much drier.

This is good news for Hugh Broad here in East Lothian.

His harvest is well under way

and the problems with the grain dryer are now behind him.

Hugh needs the rest of harvest to run smoothly.

He's had two years of poor crops and the business is under pressure.

Last year was our worst year period.

Each and every year, you're faced with the vagaries of the weather,

but you've got economic variations, as well.

In harvest '13, we had a combination of low yield

and low commodity prices.

You'd have had wheat marketed in harvest '12 at ?250 a tonne,

and this year, the current futures price for wheat is 120.

This makes it all the more crucial for Hugh to harvest his crops

when they are in peak condition.

It's dry now,

but rain is never too far away wherever you are in Scotland.

This crop, we're aiming for a milling market.

And, hopefully, these are going to become Scott's Porage Oats.

And so we want to maintain the quality.

So, as soon as they become mature,

we're then looking to get the harvester in and get them cut.

Looking at the forecast,

we've got about four or five days of rain coming,

you know, on top of a crop that's really reached its ideal maturity.

And from now on, we'll start to get, you know, potential loss of quality.

And, so, that's why we're keen just to keep pressing on.

As rain is about to move in to East Lothian,

the harvesting conditions in Moray are perfect.

So, drive up and under. Try and match his speed.

And then he'll just start emptying it.

The first one is always a bit rusty...

but it soon comes back to me.

It's the season's first rolling transfer.

And again, we're just trying to start from the last area

that he filled in the trailer.

Just. We'll fill it from the back, to maximise the space.

It's a bit strange when you're normally driving a car

and you're looking forward, where you're going.

When you're driving a tractor and filling a trailer with grain,

you're always looking backwards

Hugh heads back to the farm to dump the load in the grain shed.

George's barley is destined to be used to make whisky,

but it's got to be good.

The distillers will only take the best of the best.

So, that was the first tip of the trailer in there.

That's our first pile of grain into the shed,

and then we'll go and repeat the process from there.

By the end of the season,

this shed will be full to bursting point with barley -

at least, that's the theory.

Basically, he's been impatient...

..not waited for me to come back...

..he's pushed his luck and overfilled his tank

and it's spilt over.

The barley is precious.

Hugh and George spend a few minutes rescuing the mislaid grains.

This is a schoolboy error.

Letting it overrun like that.

I just folded the roof the wrong way down.

So...

inexperience with the new combine. HUGH CHUCKLES

All there is to it.

So... You'll never do it again, though, eh?

Well, I'll never do it again, no.

I'll never live it down if I do it again, either!

Lesson learned.

Lecture over and a few minutes later, the wheels are rolling again.

In Kintyre, Duncan's working flat out.

Just checking for rot.

If I can stick my finger through it, I'll need to do something about it.

Need to go and get the pop-riveter. Or a welder.

Or a bean can and start repairing it.

The first of Duncan's barley fields are ready to harvest.

But, as ever, there are a few wee things that need sorted.

The harvest fever is on me this morning.

I didn't sleep very well last night, cos I knew I was going to this today.

Some holes you can just tape up with duct tape.

This being one of them.

It's not that bad yet.

So, I'll just tape it up.

I'm excited that the machine works properly.

Then, I'll not be excited when I go round the field and turn round

and there's not much BLEEP grain in the tank.

And I realise, the crop's maybe not as good as I hoped it'd be.

Then I'll be BLEEP off.

Oh...wee bit more... That's it.

A few more patches,

and then Duncan's in the field and ready to go.

Start of the 2014 harvest.

Five and half, six acre field.

ENGINE TICKS OVER

Hopefully, she'll start.

ENGINE REVS

As the cereals harvest is in full swing, there's another crop

that traditionally is coming to the end of its harvest -

soft fruit.

But that isn't always the case these days.

The fruit season is being extended by some innovative farmers,

who are using technology to fill the gap

in the supply of British soft fruit to the supermarkets.

Very nice.

At Castleton Farm, near Laurencekirk in Aberdeenshire,

they've always grown strawberries and raspberries.

But recently, they've started a new crop -

blueberries.

Ross Mitchell runs the business.

Ross, tell me, why did you move into blueberries?

We started growing blueberries cos we saw a market opportunity

for late-season blueberries.

When the southern hemisphere has finished producing... Uh-huh.

..it moves through Northern Europe.

Poland's the biggest producer in Europe.

And then, after they finish,

there's a big gap before the southern hemisphere starts again.

So, we recognised this window of opportunity,

and did some trials with different varieties,

to see if we'd fit this gap. Uh-huh.

And, lo and behold, we fit it perfectly,

so we're extending the UK season by an extra six weeks

and have the UK produce blueberries

when nobody in the rest of the world is producing.

We should really test them... Yeah. ..seeing as we're here.

Walking for a couple of minutes already... Proof of the pudding.

Oh, man, it's just an explosion in your mouth, isn't it?

It is, isn't it? That's beautiful.

Really sweet, but you really get the tang of the fruit, as well.

And you're the most northerly producer in the UK, is that right?

We're claiming to be the most northerly growers in the world.

Castleton produce 1,700 tonnes of soft fruit,

all grown on 240 acres of land.

Their team of seasonal pickers, mainly from eastern Europe,

fill 110,000 punnets of fruit every day.

That's five million punnets a year!

This is big business.

But Castleton are not content to stop there.

They're in the middle of a trial

to see if they can produce cherries on a commercial scale.

And, by the looks of things, it's going pretty well, so far.

So, we're trying to mimic what we've done with blueberries by extending

the UK offer of cherries for an extra three to four weeks

after the English season's finished.

So, this is a variety called Lapins, which is very dark, very sweet -

large fruit, very succulent.

Is that the only ones you grow here? No, we grow five different varieties.

We're trialling different varieties to get different seasons.

So, we'll be picking cherries for six weeks, up in Scotland.

How successful has this been, then, moving into cherries?

It's still early days, yet.

Our oldest plantation's only four years old,

but hopefully, we're going to make it work, anyway.

The Cherry trial at Castleton

has had investment and support from Marks Spencer.

Their soft fruit buyer is Bill Davies.

Well, Ross has been...

Well, we've been with Ross for nearly ten years now,

first, as a soft fruit grower.

But we wanted to try and extend our cherry season, our UK cherry season,

and Ross, here, had perfect conditions.

And because he's such an innovative grower,

he was happy to try a new crop.

And the result, as you've seen today, has been fantastic.

And what are you looking for in the perfect cherry?

Wow!

Colour and a really, really good flavour.

We try and sell the biggest, sweetest, juiciest cherries.

And I think that says it all, really.

That bite and that flavour, and that first bite is what's so key.

And Ross is delivering it.

And Ross, well, look what's on the tree.

Ross is delivering it. And people buy with their eyes, as well,

and the cherries just look absolutely stunning at this time of year.

The end of the first week in August

and, so far, the summer's been great for crops.

Just the right mix of sunshine and rain.

But just as the grain stores are starting to fill,

the weather takes a dramatic turn for the worse.

We're keeping an eye on this area of low pressure.

It is ex-Hurricane Bertha.

It's not looking... Oh... It's not looking nice.

We knew the remnants of Hurricane Bertha were coming.

We thought we just might miss it.

And you can see on the radar and satellite pictures,

those swathes of cloud, the heavy bands of rain.

The forecast on the BBC is dire.

Some further heavy rain for parts of Moray and western Aberdeenshire.

That rain will just keep coming.

That is bad news. That's really bad news for us.

Over the weekend of the 9th and 10th of August,

Moray takes the brunt of Bertha.

This was an unusual storm.

The position of the jet stream

drew the weather system across Central and Southern England,

before heading into the North Sea and then curling back on itself,

hitting the North East of Scotland worst of all.

That is serious BLEEP.

That is serious, serious BLEEP.

If the rain stops now, that'll take....

I estimate five to seven days before we can get going again.

By the looks of it.

I mean, the colour's still there, it's not too bad.

It's flattened little bits a bit more,

but we can easily pick that up with the combine.

That's not fatal.

It's just frustrating to see it sitting there

getting four inches of rain dumped on it overnight.

With no prospect of harvesting for at least a few days,

George retreats into the kitchen with his wife Kate.

There's nothing you can do about that.

It's outwith your control. It's going to happen.

You just have to make the best of it.

And we'll just sit it out and, when the weather improves,

everything'll dry up and, hopefully, we'll get the rest of the crop cut.

You've got to remain optimistic about it.

Hope for the best.

Glass half full.

Glass half full.

East Lothian has escaped the wrath of Bertha.

Here, it's now warm and dry, and Hugh is cutting wheat.

At the moment we're processing,

well, it's just over 50 tonnes an hour.

Which, you know, that's pretty good going.

If the moisture would drop a little bit more,

then we could increase that output still further,

but it's quite respectable.

Today's a good day, with the weather.

So, they're cracking on, I'm just getting their tea for later on.

While Hugh drives the machine, his wife, Anna, feeds the troops.

Got beef stew tonight, from the local butcher.

Just doing some veg to go with it.

Everyone has a role to play at harvest time and...

..keeps everything ticking over nicely, if you all pull together.

I get the easy deal. I prefer cooking to driving machines

and I think I'm better at it, so...

Everyone does what they're best at.

I picked up quite a vibration,

since I went through that green patch back up there,

so I'm going to have to stop and have a look

and see what's causing it all, when I get to the end here.

Suddenly, something isn't right.

Erm, the vibration just got worse and worse

and it came up with a warning symbol, saying that grain elevos were slow,

so I know roughly which area to go and have a look on the machine.

But we'll need to go and investigate. There's a fundamental problem there.

Tractor-man Gary arrives to lend a hand.

There's a green patch.

I think a foreign body's gone through the machine

and it's smashed the rotary knives on the straw chopper,

as well as some stationary knives,

and the debris has gone into the return mechanism on the harvester,

and it's jammed it. Right, keep going.

ENGINE STARTS

That didn't sound good, Hugh. It didn't sound good, no.

It's almost like there's a shaft bent.

Do you know that when you see it?

The vibration coming off of this one here.

That's gone through. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, as it's coming off that pulley, it's cut it across.

Right, definitely a workshop job.

Right, shut all the panels up.

Those things can go in the bucket.

Hi, Jock.

Yeah, but we're starting to get to the bottom of the problem,

the straw-chopper shaft has moved sideways in the machine.

And it's the drive shaft that's wrong.

It's thrown the belt off

and, for some reason, the whole shaft has moved through,

you know, where you clutch it to change from the low speed

to the high speed? Something fundamental has gone wrong there.

Would you be able to come up and have a look

and assess it more thoroughly?

We just want to either get it resolved ASAP

or see if we can get hold of another machine,

because it's a bit of a disaster.

Until the specialist engineers can strip the combine down,

Hugh won't know the extent of the problem.

But this delay is the last thing he needs.

Stick the compressor on. I'm wanting the airgun, it's just there, Neil.

It's a bit grey.

It's dry, but it's a bit grey and the forecast is for sun.

That's frustrating, cos it's not sunny.

And I don't think... I'll be surprised if it'll do.

The sun'll need to come out.

And then, we'll move on.

Duncan's being helped by his son, Neil,

who he hopes will, one day, take over the farm.

You would want me to go to college,

but I wouldn't need to go to college to do it, I wouldn't say.

Don't want to, basically.

If you're going to be a farmer, you'd be better going to college.

Yeah, but I wouldn't need to. Well...

By the time you're dead and you've stopped telling me what to do,

I'll know everything.

DUNCAN CHUCKLES

Oh, great(!)

Duncan's combine has been idle for more than a week,

while he had to wait for his next fields of barley to ripen.

Conditions aren't ideal, but he can't bear to wait any longer.

You know, you're running your feet through the grass

and it's dry, you know?

All right, there's a wee puddle here, but ignore that.

It's fairly dry down there.

Not perfectly dry, but it's fairly dry.

We'll try it. We'll try it once around the field.

Questionable, whether it's hard enough, you know? We'll try it.

With just a few hundred metres cut, Duncan's combine is not happy.

The belt came off.

But I don't know why it's come off. I think I've chopped the drum.

Something's gone wrong anyway. Let me get my boiler suit and my tool box.

HE SIGHS

It doesn't take long to find out what's wrong.

Oh.

That's not what we want to see.

The combine is clogged up with wet straw.

They'll be saying, "I told you so. I told you it was too wet."

As you can see, underfoot, this is what Bertha brought with it.

Pretty squelchy. Pretty squelchy.

It's the 24th of August, George Elder's patience

has been tested to its limit,

he hasn't been able to combine for two whole weeks

after the flooding caused by the remnants of Hurricane Bertha.

This is the aftermath, or the consequences of Bertha,

obviously, four or five inches of rain

landing everywhere up on the hills

and the Muckle Burn is just through the trees there.

Right. Couldn't cope, so it just comes spewing out, digs a hole

and, as you can see, distributes gravel everywhere.

So, this water isn't normally there? That's all come from the burn?

No, no. That has come out of there, yes, this would normally be barley,

as you can see. This hole has been created by the force of the water?

Yes. Completely? Completely. Good God.

The flood caused by the burn breaking its banks

is jeopardising a number of acres of George's barley.

If he can't get it harvested soon, it won't be good enough to be sold

at a premium price to the whisky industry.

If he can't harvest it at all, he'll lose thousands of pounds.

So, you reckon there's about 10 acres here.

We think there's about 10 acres. And what are we? ?165 per tonne.

?165 per tonne is about the going rate.

Two tonnes per acre. Two tonnes per acre.

At least. 3,300 quid. ?3,300.

Just sitting here... going to waste, at the moment.

Hopefully, we'll get it. Hopefully.

Not going to risk any more of that.

The yellow combine is poised, ready to attack the boggy field,

but George is concerned she may end up consuming more than barley.

This is what you get. Debris strewn all through your crop.

Which is pretty harmless, but not to a combine.

A combine will hit all of that.

We'll see what we can get without getting stuck.

And you have to go slow, not for the crop itself,

but you just can't go waltzing into it,

because if you go too fast and get stuck in the crop then...not good.

So, we just have to tread carefully.

Ah, come on!

George's day goes from bad to worse.

At the other end of the field, younger son Gavin

has got his tractor well and truly stuck in the muck.

It's just not funny. Really?

What? Getting stuck. It's just ridiculous, you know?

It's unheard of, I know.

What you didn't do... See the green button there? Yeah.

That's four-wheel drive. Oh. It's in now, see? Four-wheel drive now?

Yes, so... Well, leave it in four-wheel drive in the field,

but when you're going up the farm road just knock it out.

But that...that would have helped.

It's all right. You might have got stuck, anyway, I don't know.

OK, here's the... Oh, my goodness.

I almost feel quite bad about coming in and talking about this,

but this is the... This is the problem, I take it?

Hugh's combine has now been out of action for 24 hours.

What's happened is,

this is a driveshaft that comes through from the engine.

This is the power train coming through to drive the grain elevator

and the re-threshing mechanism. Uh-huh.

And the shaft has failed. It's an unusual breakdown.

But it's one that, you know,

it's going to take several hours to repair. Right.

The key with all these breakdowns is, you know, things go wrong,

but it is how quickly we can respond to it

and get it up and running.

We're very fortunate. The local dealership is coming quick.

They've organised spares, they're stripping the broken bits out

and we can then get the replacement bits in.

And will there be a financial implication for this, do you think?

Fortunately, this is a relatively new machine

and is still under warranty.

I have yet to come across a machine that doesn't break down

and the key is how quickly we can get it going again.

Not as quickly as Hugh would like.

The parts eventually came in over the weekend

and, unfortunately, there was another problem.

When the shaft snapped, it damaged the rotor on the straw chopper,

so the straw chopper has had to be replaced, as well.

The dealers and the manufacturers have been really helpful.

They have allowed us to use their demonstration harvester,

which is what we're in today.

It is not quite as big as our own harvester

but at least it allows us to keep the wheels turning.

We are flat out now and, uh,

we will be until October, so plenty to do for everyone

and I'm just getting the tea ready for everyone who works on the farm.

Because it's a great harvesting day, we're going to push on

into the evening, as long as we can

and, hopefully, the weather holds and the wheels keep turning.

You always have to add that caveat in farming,

"weather permitting", and I think there's also

an added caveat of "machinery permitting", as well!

This is where they'll eat their tea tonight.

Pop it in the fridge and they can microwave it up when they're ready.

We're missing our own machine, but this one is doing a great job.

But it is probably working at at least 25% less output

than our own machines.

But, uh, 75% progress is better than none.

We've had a good harvesting day today

and made a bit of progress, but we'll keep going longer, if we can.

The moisture in the grain is quite low now

and if we can harvest in these conditions, we save quite a lot

of drying, so we're just going to keep the wheels turning and...

It's about nine o'clock now, but if we can, we'll push on

for another few hours yet, but...time will tell.

Early September and, as the days start to shorten and temperatures

begin to fall, the last crop to be harvested is tatties.

Last year was a dreadful one for potato famers.

There were reports that tens of thousands of tonnes of potatoes

were simply dumped, because there wasn't a market for them.

Fingers crossed that 2014 will be better.

I'm on my way to Perthshire to the Grewar family farm.

How's it going? Good, thanks. Nice to meet you. Thanks very much.

I'll give you that, we'll have a look around, will we? Definitely.

This looks lovely. Just my colour. Matches my eyes.

Pete Grewar is the fourth generation of his family to farm here.

His father planted his first acre of new potatoes in 1973.

40 years on, the operation has grown substantially.

Pete, tell me, how many acres of tatties are you growing here?

In Perthshire and Angus, we're growing about 900 acres, um,

of potatoes for the fresh market.

But also, we grow about 400 acres up in the Black Isle in Easter Ross.

And that's predominantly for certified seed.

Scotland produces over 1.1 million tonnes of potatoes every year.

That's shedloads of tatties -

about 550 million pre-packed supermarket bags.

Pete's taking me to see a field of potatoes a few weeks away

from being ready to harvest.

We take the tops off, to stop them growing,

if we don't do that, then they won't keep for any length of time.

Oh, right. So that allows us to store them through the winter.

What's the weather been like this summer? Good for potatoes?

It has been a very growthy summer,

it's been very good for the crops growing.

We have had rain and sunshine in good measure.

Aww, looking nice. There we go, beautiful.

Fantastic. That looks lovely.

What variety are these and where would you sell them?

These are Maris Piper, the most commonly-grown variety

in Scotland and the UK.

And these will go into supermarket pre-packed bags.

Like the cereals harvest,

modern potato farming relies on state-of-the-art equipment.

For this season, the Grewars invested in a brand-new machine,

worth ?392,000.

As with most other crops,

this is a global market ruled by supply and demand.

The price received by farmers can go down, as well as up.

Let's talk about last year. Just how bad a year was it?

It was hugely variable, you know. Everybody had different crops

and the potato industry has always been quite a volatile industry,

in terms of price.

The price can be poor one year, high the next, at farm gate level.

Retail prices tend to be flatter.

So, it wasn't the worst year we've had, by a long way.

But I understand that quite a lot of potatoes were dumped last year,

as well. What are we talking about in terms of tonnage?

For starters, when we talk about tonnages being dumped,

you know, we don't dump it in a landfill site or in a quarry,

it goes into cattle feed and other markets.

These markets are generally low or even no value markets.

So, what is this year looking like, do you think?

This year, we have good quality crops, the volume of the crop

looks to be slightly bigger than normal this year.

The forecasters are telling us, so it must be true, that we are going

to have a colder winter than normal and that will increase demand.

So, we are hoping that the extra volume of potatoes that we are going

to produce this year will be soaked up by that

extra demand from the cold weather this winter.

So, the weather of 2014 looks like providing a good season

for potato growing.

A cold winter to follow will increase consumer demand.

Put the two together and this could be a bumper year for potato farmers.

In East Lothian,

it's seven days since Hugh's combine suffered a major breakdown.

Finally, the replacement straw chopper has arrived

and the engineers can begin the delicate operation to fit it.

Bit more!

Tilt it forward.

Right, up.

It takes most of the day to fit the new part

and put the combine back together.

So, yeah, that's it done. We're good to go now,

so, we'll...just see how they're getting on in the other field,

but we're probably going to go straight to Duncanlaw.

We've got that demo machine for the rest of today, anyway,

and it looks like we've got rain coming in tomorrow,

so it's 6 o'clock now. For a few hours this evening, We were able

to work till about half 11 last night, before the dampness came down.

If we're able to keep the wheels turning, we can maybe get another

five or six hours of harvesting and that makes a big difference.

The end is nigh!

We've got approximately...less...maybe

about 30 acres to go.

If you look down there,

see all those millions of heads coming in?

That's heavy. That'll be a three-tonne crop, I think.

Basically, over there is the end, that corner.

Another field is the end.

Seems to have taken for ever. Been at it nearly three weeks.

I remember doing what Neil's doing now.

When I was quite young,

I had a little trailer and it was spilling everywhere.

It's 21 years since Duncan took over the farm from his father.

I realised that there was a huge asset here

and someone had to look after it.

And I reckoned I was the man to be doing it.

So, eh, I trained myself how to do it.

I came back here when I was 30.

It was severely run down. Everything was hanging together with string.

The first day, I cut the string off. The next day

I put it back on, because it all fell to bits!

I enjoy what I do. I enjoy working with the land.

It's a game, this farming lark.

But you've got to make it pay. That's the clever bit.

The rain stopped play at six o'clock, so we went home,

picked up a sample of barley and now we're taking it up

to Highland Grain, which is the cooperative that I am a part of.

Every few days, George checks his barley is going to be good enough.

That's it, that's my sample in for tonight.

They'll look at that one in the morning

and I'll hear back from them tomorrow sometime.

First test, I think, is moisture.

Then, they test it for the nitrogen level

and the nitrogen level has to be under 1.7,

so the lower the nitrogen, the better the quality of the barley -

or the better the maltsters like it.

And then, the most important thing they test it for is germination.

It has to germinate, to make it into malt.

Highland Grain send me a text back with all the results, so the variety

is concerto, the nitrogen is 1.4, which is very good,

moisture content 15.4, which is dry, so it will store in here,

but we still like to get it shifted, so it is a very good sample

so it is good to go.

They'll take that. We'll get a lorry tomorrow, I hope.

George is unusual in selling his barley so quickly.

If they've got the storage space, many farmers hang on to their grain

and watch the market, to catch it when the price rises.

That price is determined in the United States,

at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, commonly known as the Merc.

The Chicago price is influenced by political and climatic events

across the globe.

But this is a benchmark guide and different types of grain

will sell for varying amounts, depending on their end use.

For example, malting barley for whisky will always have

a higher value than barley for animal feed.

But everything follows what happens in Chicago.

Whether you're a farmer, a trader or distiller or a miller,

you will probably have a good look at that price every day.

Julian Bell is a farming finance expert at Scotland's Rural College.

The factors that are affecting farmers in Scotland are just

the same as those in Idaho, Argentina, you name it.

That is the largest part of the effect on the grain price.

And what percentage is British grain in the world market, then?

The biggest grain crop in the world is the US corn crop.

The Scottish grain crop is not even 1% of that. Right.

So, it is a fraction of a percent, in terms of, even the UK,

of the whole global grain production.

How well has the market performed over the last few years?

Up until very recently, the market has been pretty good for farmers.

The world's population is growing, demand has been growing.

Farmers have been struggling to keep up with demand, so our farmers have

benefited quite well from that. But, last year was a good harvest

and this year we've actually had a very good harvest around the world

and really, put together, those two really good years have helped

put the stocks up and brought the prices down

and it could be quite a tough year for them this year.

The 10th of September

and it's a balmy late summer's evening in Kintyre.

The combine stopped. Job done!

Think we'll ever have harvest weather like this again?

Probably never see it again, no?

Not in our lifetime, anyway.

Oh, well, that's the 21st harvest done.

I think it's time to go for a beer, eh?

We'll go for a beer.

When at last the combines stop turning, it's time to forget

about the problems of the season and reflect on a job well done.

Hugh had his best harvest for three years, but is biding his time

and waiting for the price of grain to rise, before selling most

of his bumper crop.

Physically, it's a good harvest, because the yields are high

and the harvest has been gathered in reasonably good condition.

It is quite nice. From a producer's point of view, we've done our bit.

If we've got a good yield and it is harvested well

and the next crop is established nicely, then we've done our bit.

The quality of George's malting barley means it is destined

to feature in a malt whisky glass in years to come.

He sold it for ?165 per tonne,

lower than last year, but not too bad.

On reflection, a good harvest?

On reflection a good harvest.

Despite, despite Bertha interrupting things,

the yield has been good, the quality has been there

and it's gone to Highland Grain, so we are very happy.

And Duncan had a great crop. 60 tonnes more barley than he needs

to feed his cattle through the winter.

He plans to sell the surplus locally, for up to ?130 a tonne.

It's gone very well.

It's been very trouble-free.

One of the most straightforward harvests I think we've had.

This is my 21st harvest and it's been relatively...

It's been straightforward.

The weather has been kind, though. The weather makes everything easy.

Anybody can be a farmer in good weather.

In a matter of days, this field, and thousands like it

across the country, will be ploughed up and prepared for planting.

Harvest 2014 will be a distant memory, as thoughts

turn to next time around.

Harvest is the culmination of a year of hard work by our farmers

and their families. It is their livelihood but, without them,

we would not be able to put food on our tables.

A CHOIR HUMS: Adagio For Strings by Samuel Barber

BRAYING AND BOOING

CHEERING

SLOWED DOWN: No!

The new series!

BELL TOLLS

CLOCK TICKS

England is in need of a jolly good scare. How?

CLOCK TICKS

Can you supply a bomb?

You're an agent, aren't you?

CLOCK TICKS

Why were you talking about explosives?

Our marriage is real. We are a true family.

You know what our secret is, Stevie.

Not even Winnie must know.

I never expected to be used in this way!

Time to act, fella!

INAUDIBLE

I'll do what needs to be done.