Mild weather in store for the weekend

According to Met Éireann, it will be generally mild and cloudy tonight with patches of rain, drizzle and fog and temperatures not falling below 9°C or 10°C degrees.

Moving into Saturday, it will be a pleasantly mild autumn day with temperatures in the low to mid-teens. Overall quite a lot of cloud about but there will be some sunny spells and it will be dry apart from some patchy drizzle.

Mild Saturday night with temperatures not falling below 10°C or 11°C and skies mostly cloudy with further patchy drizzle and fog.

The weather looks like staying dry over Leinster, east Ulster and east Munster and while there will be some sunny spells, overall a mainly cloudy day with some patchy rain or drizzle possible. Further west, fronts will move in from the Atlantic bringing scattered outbreaks of rain and there is a risk of some locally heavy falls over parts of the southwest, west and northwest. Temperatures on Saturday 11°C or 12°C degrees in moderate to fresh southerly winds backing southeasterly. Mild Sunday night with patches of rain, drizzle and fog.

While there may be a few sunny spells on Monday overall it looks like it will be another mostly cloudy day and mostly dry; just some patches of rain, drizzle and fog possible. Temperatures of 12°C to 15°C in moderate easterly winds. Still mild Monday night.

Clipping the back of cattle is a practical way to reduce pneumonia as it helps to keep animals cooler and reduces heat stress in a heavily stocked shed, writes beef editor Adam Woods

Locomotion scoring was discussed at a lameness workshop on the Greenfield farm last week. Aidan Brennan was on a couple of large farms during the past week that have recently gone to once-a-day milking for the rest of the season.

This week's sheep management notes cover nutrition during early pregnancy, a reminder on liver fluke and grazing heavy covers. The deadline to spread farmyard manure (FYM) is fast approaching. Meanwhile, some marts and factories have seen incorrect documents for lambs.

Good soil conditions have enabled a lot of planting to be completed in most areas of the country in recent weeks, writes Andy Doyle.