A SECOND hot and dry harvest season has arrived for farmers in Yorkshire, and the combines are at work night and day in fields all over the county.

The NFU's Rachael Gillbanks said the fine weather means harvest is up to two weeks ahead of schedule for many, with much of the barley already brought in and the wheat fields next in line.

After the disastrously wet harvest of 2013, two years of better weather mean farmers have got their fields back in good condition and an early harvest this year means next year's crop can be planted in good time, and bodes well for 2015's harvest.

But all is not "home and dry" yet, according to Stockton on the Forest farmer Rosie Dunn.

Although the combine harvester started work around two weeks ago, they are not yet half way through their own 150 acres and the crops they cut for other farmers as contractors. Hurricane Bertha, making its way across the Atlantic from the Caribbean, could change the outlook, Rosie added.

She said: "We got a good start, and if the weather had held we would be well on our way. But now there's a hurricane being tracked across from America, and a lot depends on where that ends up. It could land on the south, but a lot of the harvest is over there so it wouldn't have much impact. But if it lands up north, there's a lot of harvest left to do."

Days of changeable weather could put a dampener on the successful harvest so far, and prompt a mad rush to bring the crops in on time.

"We haven't had any all-nighters yet, but if the weather stays catchy then when there is good weather, you have to make on."