Relentless rain continues to fall in the southeast, with concern around slurry storage growing by the day.

After a second bout of flooding late last week, land is absolutely saturated all across the region, which usually fares best with the weather, but this year is wetter than the west of Ireland.

Over 60mm of rainfall fell at Cork Airport in the first 10 days of February, following a January with over 350% of average monthly rainfall.

ADVERTISEMENT

Farmers in Wexford have recorded over 300mm since the start of the year, with further rain forecast this Thursday and Friday, before weather turns cold and drier.

It’s now a month since the end of the closed period for slurry spreading, and 133 days since the closed period began.

Almost no slurry has been spread yet in the region, as almost every day since 12 January has seen rainfall.

Wexford IFA chair Tom Doyle said that the situation is getting critical, expressing the hope that the weather will change and bring respite sooner rather than later.

“Farmers need a window where ground and weather conditions allow them to get some slurry out on land,” he said.

“Better weather would also allow farmers to turnout some stock, which would also reduce the pressure on slurry storage capacity”.

Wettest ever

Wicklow sheep and tillage farmer James Hill described the conditions as the wettest he can ever remember. His flock isn’t lambing until late March and are currently outside.

“Utilisation of beet tops is far from optimal,” he said.

“I couldn’t even get a tractor into the field with a bale of hay earlier this week. Whatever the weather brings, we’ll have to live with it”.

In terms of crops, Hill said: “while winter crops have held up well, it’s critical that we get into the field with fertiliser soon. There’s little hope of that with current ground conditions and a lot more rain in the short-term forecast.”