Spring was long awaited this year and despite now being in mid-March, the aftermath of the severe floods that battered the country at the tail end of 2015 and the start of this year is still apparent.

Met Éireann reports that over half of its weather stations accounted for their wettest winter on record. But it wasn’t just the floods alone that caused problems; there has been little or no break in the rain since then either.

This has made land work in particular impossible in some parts of the country. The usual slurry spreading and getting animals out to graze has not been possible this year.

Andrew Walsh is an agri-contractor in south Mayo where the floods were extremely bad.

“We usually spread slurry from 15 January,” says Andrew, “Well, it’s eight weeks later and we wouldn’t have 10 days’ worth of slurry done.

“There are some fields that are just mud baths and those fields will be out of production until June.”

Another cost

This lack of progress is impacting negatively on Andrew’s own business as all he can do is relieve the problem.

“We’ve been taking slurry out of tanks, but not emptying them, so it’s a lot of that work. It’s costing me money, because it takes a minimum of two lads and they’re gone all day. But you can’t say no, because it’s our business. You just couldn’t leave stock in those conditions. Financially, it might not be the best decision, but that doesn’t apply this year. It’s about solving an emergency problem.”

Of all the farms Andrew has worked on, only a handful have the land fully spread and none have empty tanks: “It’s just about trying to lower them.”

However, Andrew does say that any better weather “would have a huge difference”.

Consistent rain

Even those who escaped the severe floods couldn’t escape the consistent rain.

Dairy farmer Tom Dunne had land damaged due to heavy rain “even though it wasn’t severe in a big area. So we are OK and we managed, but it was very difficult.”

Tom was able to get some slurry spread, but it was “with an umbilical cord, which was much harder – the ground has just been saturated and so wet”.

The Co Cork farm is on dry land and a system is in place to work with that; meaning all spreading is usually done in January and young stock are out grazing by 1 February. However, for the first time in years, that schedule was impossible because of the weather.

Although he admits this has “definitely been the worst year” he can remember, Tom thinks “if the weather picks up now in the next few weeks, it will absolutely make a huge difference”.

Little or no rain forecasted

And according to Met Éireann, improving conditions are on the way.

Apart from some showers of rain on Friday because of thick clouds, according to the forecast there will be a full dry week ahead. There will be light breezes and temperatures are expected to be between 10°C to 12°C.

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