With the cooler weather moving in, we hopefully have moved into a drier period. It’s been very wet.

The carrot harvest has been a bit stop-start, but the cool weather has turned the housewife’s attention to carrot and parsnip mash, so with that the harvest volumes are going up. The cool mornings are great for bringing up colour in the parsnips but are knocking the colour out of me.

We have moved our grass B&B heifers into their last paddock before letting them out the gate and home for Christmas. Next year, we will have around 120 acres of grass in this system which works well for us. It has a low demand on machines but makes use of our people around the yard for moving and checking stock.

Australian competitors

While I was in Australia recently at a farming event, it was interesting to hear from the Irish dairy man’s competitors. We talk locally about the dairy bubble going to burst because of all these new dairy entrants here, but in real terms it makes no difference on a global scale.

As low cost, grass-based producers, if our dairy industry doesn’t over-leverage, it will always survive. The high-cost Dutch, Americans and even Australians, will be on the chopping block before them.

On the machinery front, I bought a new tractor two weeks ago that is expected to be delivered this week. More to follow on that. Sadly I have to start the process of paying for her now.

With Christmas coming around the corner, we are starting to gear up for a busy period. It will mean earlier starts and later finishes with more pressure on man and machine so it will be great to get the new tractor into the system to make the long hours on a harvester more comfortable.