Farmers in the Enniscorthy area are today (Monday, June 26) assessing the extent of damage to their tillage crops following an intense thunder and hail storm.
The Co. Wexford town suffered flash flooding yesterday morning (Sunday June 25), with farmers seeing their crops, including winter barley and oilseed rape, now heavily damaged.
Alan O’Reilly of Carlow Weather reported that in the Bunclody area, north of Enniscorthy, the temperature dropped from 21.3° to 13.5° during the weather event.
He said: “Temperature dropped 7.8° in 30 minutes at Bunclody earlier as thunderstorm hit.”
While businesses in the town are determining their cost of the damage, farmers surrounding Enniscorthy and the wider area will now be estimating what losses they will suffer as a result.
Hail damage in Co. Wexford
John Murphy, vice-chair of the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) grain committee told Agriland that he was speaking to a local farmer who had inspected his crop this morning.
He said: “A man rang me this morning, he had 55ac of winter barley and he reckons it’s completely shredded.
“This is badly damaged. It would have been ripe to cut in the next two weeks and what he’s saying is the grain is gone off the head.”
With the grain on the ground, Murphy said “there’s no way of harvesting”.
Murphy called for support for the affected farmers by asking: “Is there anything that could be done with regards to a package?”
He did acknowledge that attempting to gain such financial supports was hard, adding: “It’s difficult to try get any momentum.”
Affected crops
Jer O’Mahony, IFA chair in Co. Wexford described the downpour as “biblical” and mentioned the farmers that were affected, those growing winter barley, winter wheat and outdoor strawberries.
Speaking on the crops, O’Mahony said: “A lot of them have gotten a severe battering from this.”
With oilseed rape growers estimated to generate a yield of 1.5t/ac to cover their input costs in 2023, this recent weather event in Wexford will come as a huge blow to the tillage farmers in the region.
Winter barley has been reported as having the potential to deliver bumper yields in 2023, but with much of the crop damaged for the affected farmers around Enniscorthy, they will be attempting to gauge what their yield may bring.