As the harvest continues to be delayed, there looks to be drier weather coming towards the weekend. Large amounts of cereal crops remain to be harvested while beans, spring oilseed rape and potatoes are all on the agenda.
While some farmers have finished cutting cereal crops, many have large areas to harvest, while even more have straw sitting on wet ground.
As time goes on crops continue to deteriorate. However, there are some good crops of later-sown spring cereals out there.
When the opportunity presents itself in this wet weather, growers may consider looking at winter barley varieties and thinking about their cropping plan for the next season.
Potatoes
In the first season without diquat potato, farmers are finding things challenging and the wet weather isn’t helping.
Oilseed rape
Ground conditions are an issue for all work. Some farmers hoping to get winter oilseed rape planted have been struggling to get the right establishment conditions. Farmers should bear in mind that they can persist with planting until the middle of September.
Weather outlook
Met Éireann is forecasting drier days on Wednesday and Thursday (September 8 and 9) of this week with some light rain and an odd shower in the north-west. Rain is expected on Friday but, at present, the weekend is forecast to be mainly dry.