The world's most powerful combine harvester has been put through its paces in Norfolk for the first time – and filmed from the air to record its performance.

A New Holland CR10.90 secured the Guiness World Records title last year after harvesting almost 800 tonnes of wheat from 80 hectares of land in just eight hours in Lincolnshire.

And last week, the first model of its kind to be put into commercial use in East Anglia made short work of 100ha of winter barley at Thelveton Farms near Diss.

But the recent wet weather has delayed harvest operations, so the machine will still have 180ha of oilseed rape to gather before its 12.5m (41ft) header will be directed towards the biggest job of the season – 780ha of winter wheat, of which 254ha are milling varieties for customers including Warburtons bread.

Arable manager Jonathan Lloyd said: 'The combine was new for us this year. We are really pleased with its performance, but we have not been able to push it very hard yet. It was in the oilseed rape for three hours last night (Wednesday) and was going great guns.

'Because of the weather, we are probably 10 days behind where we were last year. By this time last year, we had already started cutting wheat. This year we have probably got three days to do on the rape before we can start on the wheat.'

Mr Lloyd said the scale of the farming operation at Thelveton – and the need to get crops quickly off the field when the conditions were right – meant investing in large machinery made economic sense.

'There are two issues,' he said. 'One is about the weather, as some of the wheat that we grow is for milling to make bread. If it sits out in the rain for too long, it will not reach the specifications for making bread.

'We also need the output. The only other way we could do everything we need to do would be with two combines – and two are more expensive than one. It's all about economics.'

The machine, which has a retail price of about £600,000, was supplied by the Wymondham branch of New Holland dealers, Ernest Doe and Sons.

Branch manager Ross Johnson said: 'There have only been 11 of these released into the UK and this is the only one in East Anglia. It is very much a coup for us to have such a large piece of equipment out there, and we are very pleased to be able to supply it to Thelveton Farms.'