Met Éireann has today (Wednesday, September 13) issued a potato blight advisory for the entire country for the coming days.
The potato blight advisory came into effect from today and remains in effect until it expires on Monday (September 18) at 7:00p.m.
The national forecaster said that weather conditions conducive to the spread of potato blight will affect all regions.
There will be opportunities for spraying tomorrow (Thursday, September 13) in the northern half of the country for much of the morning and afternoon before rain arrives.
Met Éireann also advised that there may be further opportunities for spraying during Saturday (September 16) outside of showers.
Pale green areas (shown in the image above) have a very low blight risk of 0-3 EBH (effective blight hours) and dark green areas have low blight risk (4-6 EBH).
Yellow areas have a medium risk of blight (7-9 EBH), orange areas have a high risk (10-12 EBH), red areas have a very high risk of blight (>12 EBH).
Conditions
Soils are currently relatively dry with moisture deficits of 15mm to 25mm, with driest soils in the south.
Soil conditions will steadily deteriorate over the coming days with most soils likely becoming saturated, and potential for moderate and poorly drained soils becoming waterlogged, according to Met Éireann.
There will be limited drying conditions over the coming days with a lot of rain forecasted.
However, there will be moderate to good drying conditions for the northern half of the country on Thursday for much of the morning and afternoon before rain pushes up from the south.
There may be further opportunities for drying during Saturday outside of showers.
Met Éireann has said that the coming week will be wet with 30mm to 50mm of rainfall likely.
The highest amounts will be in the south and east of the country with totals could be as high as 100mm, over four times the average rainfall for this time of year.