A good week in most parts of the country enabled significant harvesting progress. This could leave less than 20% of total acres remaining to be cut by the weekend. Yield levels are good, but variable, and grain quality is excellent, except for malting barley.

Many growers were favourably surprised by the good performance of April-planted spring barley, despite fears that many later-planted crops would not yield. Many fields delivered 3t/ac-plus yields. But there were certainly some disappointments too at under 2.5t/ac.

Barley quality has been very good except for the very high rejection level in malting barley due to grain skinning. However, while yields in the southern half of the country are mainly in the 3t/ac to 3.5t/ac range, yields were lower in much of north Leinster at 2.5t/ac and lower.

Listen to the latest harvest update with Andy Doyle in our podcast below:

Winter wheat yields are best described as variable. Problem fields were under 3t/ac while those at the top end of the yield scale were close to 6t/ac. Rotation had a big impact on yield. In general, continuous wheat was in the 3.5t/ac to 4t/ac bracket, while first wheats tended to be in the 4.2t/ac to 4.8t/ac range. Wheat quality has been excellent, with the majority of intakes reporting 75+ KPH levels green and over 80 KPH dry.

While the majority of the country is now in the last 20% of the harvest, growers in the west and northwest continue to be persecuted by poor weather conditions.