The harvest got into full swing in some areas of the country last week, with good weather and high temperatures helping to speed up ripening and bring down moistures.

Harvesting progress has been very regional and is heavily influenced by ripening trends.

But while some growers have a significant proportion of their spring barley cut on the east coast, an amount of winter barley remains to be harvested throughout the western and northern regions due to very poor weather conditions there.

Yields continue to appear promising, but there is considerable variability at the start of this second phase of the harvest.

Spring barley yields appear to range from 2.5t/acre to over 4t/acre, but the majority of crops are in the 2.8t/acre to 3.4 t/acre bracket.

All varieties appear to be doing well and quality is generally good to very good – but there may be variety differences. Also, poorer crops may come.

Michael Connolly from Rahan, Co Offaly, told the Irish Farmers Journal that he cut a 10ha field of Irina that yielded a straight 4t/acre at 17% to 18% moisture.

“This is a full tonne more than that field would normally yield,” he said.

The indications are that well managed fields are generally doing well and many growers believe that their best fields are not yet ripe.

Winter wheat harvesting progress is also very regional. It is mainly continuous or second wheat that is being harvested across the southern half of the country and reports are generally good.

The vast majority of yields are above 4t/acre, with quite a number in excess of 4.5 t/acre and some above 5t/acre and up to 5.4t/acre.

Wheat quality also appears to be exceptionally good, with 74 KPH appearing to be at the bottom of the range for green wheat, going up to 79 KPH.

Dry wheat is reportedly coming off of farm dryers at up to 82 KPH.

Some early spring oat crops have also been cut, with an initial yield reported at 4.1t/acre. There is still an amount of winter rape to be harvested. It would seem that about one-third of the harvest has now been gathered.