The prospect of a week’s dry weather coming in will encourage tillage farmers to push ahead with ploughing and ground preparation work now.

They will want to get crops of winter rye, barley, oats and wheat into the ground before the middle of October.

Growers will not want to hold off in the event of heavy autumn rains impacting on ground conditions later in the season.

That is what happened in 2023, with many Irish tillage farms still feeling the impact of the consequences of those rains in harvest 2024.

Trends to look out for over the coming weeks will be growers’ perspective on the planting of winter rye.

The crop has been promoted heavily by Teagasc and the commercial seed sector over recent weeks. So it will be interesting to gauge if tillage farmers respond in kind.

Where winter barley is concerned, the push towards the growing of Barley Yellow Dwarf Virus (BYDV) tolerant varieties continues apace.

Without doubt, it really is a case of the new technology being rapidly accepted at farm level.

It has been estimated that 55% of the winter barley seed sown in Ireland this year will be BYDV-tolerant.

Meanwhile, the jury is out on whether the new strain of the yellow rust virus that did so much damage to wheat crops in the UK will remain a long-term threat.

The early spring of next year will tell if the pathogen survived the winter.

On the plus side, the 2025/2026 recommended varieties’ list for wheat contain numerous options that have been included within the provisionally recommended category for the first time.

This holds out the prospect of growers having much more varietal choice to sect form in the years ahead.

Adding to all of this optimism is the fact that winter oilseed rape planting rates are up almost 50% year-on-year.

The only factor that may well hamper further growth in Ireland’s rape acreage is the enhanced threat of club root, which can be traced directly to the inclusion of myriad brassica species with cover crop mixes.

Also worthy of note, where rape is concerned, was the tremendous recovery achieved by many crops that had been extensively grazed by pigeons at the tail end of last winter.

This more than encouraging response was attributed to the tremendous root network these crops had established in the weeks directly after planting.