Although there are still problems lingering on in the wake of the July floods, the weather over the last 10 days has given farmers a chance to catch up.

One of the big problems until very recently was that ground was so soft that machinery was continually getting bogged down.

However, apart from wet patches, the soil has dried out enough for combines and other machinery to travel in most places without undue problems.

Some farmers had fitted twin wheels and four wheel drive conversions to their combines to be able to avoided becoming bogged down. But the demand for the retro-fit equipment had soon outstripped supplies.

Elwyn Maddy, a sheep and beef farmer on the edge of the Black Mountains, said 10 days ago: "It's serious. The barns are empty and I have not made a single bale of hay or silage."

But last weekend he reported that he had managed to make some hay. His only worry was, having been held up for five weeks, the quality had suffered.

Philip Gorringe, a big grass seed producer, who in late July was a bit apprehensive about the prospects for harvesting what is a tricky crop to combine, was pleasantly surprised how easily combining went once the weather let him get at it.

The downside, however, was "yields are down, ironically probably due to the after-effects of the hot, dry weather in April, which has also reduced the yields of my winter barley on the lighter land."

Bill Quan says: "Due to the delayed harvest I have lost some 25% of my barley crop as some patches of the fields were too waterlogged to combine."

His comments on potatoes are still pessimistic. He says blight is still an on-going problem and is desiccating his fields to burn off the haulm earlier than usual to try to stop the blight being washed down through the soil onto the potatoes. He added: "Many flooded and waterlogged crops are a disaster."

Meurig Raymond, the NFU deputy president, visited the county on Wednesday to meet some of the farmers who had been badly affected.

Graham Hunter Blair, who farms at Weir End downstream from Ross, told him: "The flood in July was the fourth highest I have ever recorded in the 40 years I have been at Weir End."

To get a feel of the overall situation, we spoke to Steve Weatherbee, an agricultural merchant in the south of the county.

He said: "There are more smiles around this week." He told us that yields overall seemed better than expected and added: "Oil seed rape crop yields were very variable, winter barley better than expected and although not much wheat has been harvested yet, the quality of milling wheats in Herefordshire do not appear to have suffered too badly.

"Much will depend on the weather and harvesting conditions over the next week or so."