Teagasc and the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) are indicating that up to 100 farmers around the country still have 2023 barley crops to cut.
Teagasc’s Shay Phelan saw direct evidence of this situation while in Donegal last week.
“At this stage, it’s more a case of salvaging crops,” he said. “But the reality is that farmers in many different parts of the country are still trying to complete the 2023 harvest.
“People around the south coast are worst affected, in this regard, than farmers further north.”
According to Teagasc’s Ciaran Collins, there is still a window of opportunity for farmers to get winter crop into the ground this year.
“But this is totally dependent on ground drying out,” he stressed.
“Soils are totally saturated right across the country at the present time. The shorter days at this time of the year means that it takes longer for land to dry out.”
Planting barley
The general perspective from Teagasc is that the opportunity to plant out winter barley is over, except for growers on light soils.
“But there still is time to get oats and wheat crops planted. November-sown wheat crops may take a month to come up,” Ciaran Collins continued.
“But we need to see the rain stopping and land given time to drain out.”
At this stage plough/one-pass will be the approach taken by the vast majority of farmers planting winter cereal crops.
Teagasc is citing a seed rate that reflects soil conditions.
“At this stage we are really talking about wheat,” Collins explained.
“The objective of establishing 300 plants per square metre remains the target. But the seed rate will depend on field conditions and thousand grain weights.
“So, on the basis of thousand grain weights [TGW] averaging 50g, the seed rate would be 200kg/ka. But adjustments should also be made for field conditions.
“Normally, growers would work on the basis of an 85% establishment rate. But given current conditions, that figure could drop to almost 70%.”
According to Collins rolling crops planted out in November is not a practical reality.
“Tractor wheels can cause compaction with November-sown crops. And this will significantly reduce crop emergence rates. As a consequence, rolling is off the table at the present time,” he explained.
Where newly planted cereal crops are concerned, a number of management issues have already arisen.
“Not surprisingly, slug damage is an issue on many sites,” Shay Phelan added.
“Slug damage will be proportionately higher within crops that have not been rolled.”