Grain yields are close to the five-year average for many crops but some individual growers are seeing very disappointing yields in certain crops, according to senior Tirlán executives.
Many late sown spring crops, especially barley, fall into this category.
John Kealy, Tirlán’s head of grains, procurement and joint ventures, said: “The 2023 grain harvest got underway at the end of June and is now, more or less, wrapped up.
“From what we can gauge there is still a very small number of spring bean, spring barley and spring oat crops still to be combined.”
According to Tirlán it purchases on average between 12-15% of the national grain harvest mainly from its grower shareholders each year.
Roughly two thirds of this grain comes in green at harvest and the remained is delivered in dried form throughout the rest of the year.
Kealy added: “Normally 40% of our green grain intake is destined for premium outlets across the food and drink sectors.
“Despite the monumental weather and agronomy related challenges facing growers over the past 12 months, we have managed to hit nearly all of these supply targets in 2023″.
But there is one exception to this according to Kealy – malting barley.
He said this is an issue that can be mainly attributed to the fact that the performance of later-sown spring crops was so disappointing.
“This is a direct result of the extreme weather conditions that prevailed throughout these crops’ entire growing cycle,” Kealy said.
Tirlán
Separately Tirlán’s grain manager, Donal Moloney, also confirmed that, with the exception of spring barley crops, the performance of all other cereal crops has been in line with the average levels achieved in Ireland over the past five years.
Moloney said: “These trends relate to both yields and grain quality. In fact, crops of spring barley planted during the early spring period of 2023 out-performed the five-year average yield figure for this specific crop category.
“It is not fair to directly compare the level of crop performance achieved within grain enterprises this year with 2022.
“The reality is that last year saw cereal growers in Ireland enjoying a record-breaking harvest, from all perspectives including yield, weather and prices.”
Tirlán supplies all the malting barley it procures to the Malting Company of Ireland (MCI), a business the co-op jointly owns with Dairygold.
According to Moloney it is committed to providing MCI with “an agreed quantity of malting barley on an annual basis”.
“At this stage, we know that our own growers will only supply 60% of this requirement from harvest 2023.
“There is a small quantity of surplus malting barley from last year still available. The reality is that we will have to look at some alternative options for supplying the balance of our contractual commitment to MCI,” he confirmed.
According to Kealy, it is not possible to radically alter the specifications of malting barley from year to year.
“In the case of MCI, the company has a number of customers. This in itself lends to a degree of inflexibility where changes in specification are required as malting barley must meet a number of quality criteria in order to do the job it is supposed to.
“Once barley is tested at intake, that is it. The grain either meets the required quality criteria or it doesn’t.
“Earlier this harvest, MCI agreed to raise the threshold for diseased and damaged grains within a submitted sample from 2% to 4%. This was a recognition from the business of the many challenges that malting barley growers faced in 2023,” he added.
According to Kealy Tirlán will shortly publish a schedule of grain prices for 2023.
” Post consultation with the Tirlán grain sub committee, the final harvest pricing will be agreed by board members of the co-op.
“The publication of these prices can be expected in the first half of October,” he said.