The first phase of harvest 2020 has kicked off, with yields ranging from around 3t to 4t/ac at 20% moisture.

While this yield range may be what one might expect at the start of the harvest, what is quite different is the geographical footprint of this early harvesting.

Normally we might expect winter barley harvest to begin between 8 and 12 July in either the Kinsale region or in south Tipperary.

But this year, combines started to roll from Cork to Donegal pretty much on the same day on 11 July. This must be an extremely rare occurrence, as I never saw it happen before.

Early action

That said, the early action seems largely confined to a few fields in most areas, with lack of ripeness, as well as broken weather, slowing any further progress until after the middle of July.

Much of what has been cut seems to be of the hybrid six-row Belfry, but there is also a little of the conventional six-row Kosmos and a small amount of the malting two-row variety Craft.

However, most fields were still not ripe in the early days of this week and there were many instances where combines went into fields and pulled out again for this reason.

Reasonable yields

Early indications suggest yields ranging from 3t to 4t/ac at 20% moisture or lower.

One 20-acre section crop of Craft two-row winter malting barley, harvested in Wexford, finished up at 3.1t/ac at 20% moisture.

The early loads around the headlands tested at 8.6% protein and went for distilling, while later loads were destined for brewing with 9.8% protein.

Trailers are weighing well

In Kilkenny, James O’Reilly has harvested 160 acres of Belfry, which averaged 4.1t/ac at around 20% moisture and 65kg to 66kg specific weight.

“Trailers are weighing well,” James reported. However, he also feels that he has harvested his best crops and is fearful that his remaining acreage will not fare so well.

Indeed, he suggested that he will be happy if his overall winter barley yield averages 3.7t/ac.

Across in Waterford, Philip Heskin has harvested 18 acres of Kosmos six-row. This produced an average yield of 3.6t/ac at 18% moisture from the field.

However, like many other crops, this field suffered in the wet of winter and had a lot of bare patches. Philip estimates that the crop actually yielded 4.1t/ac in the areas where the crop was present.

So, like in many other fields, missing acres will pull down field yields.

Straw

Both these growers said that straw was still quite green at harvest and would need a few days on the ground before baling.

James estimated that straw yield is back around 15% on a normal year, but this might still be more that had been expected two to three months ago.