Conor Callan, Ardee, Co Louth

There’s been a small bit of rain in Louth over the past ten days but it won’t make much of a difference to grass growth or reducing the soil moisture deficit.

Conor finished up his harvest at the beginning of this week with some contracting. His own winter wheat surprised him, both in positive and negative fashion. He says the wheat that he did not expect much of did quite well and the wheat that should have done well was poor.

The continuous wheat yielded 4.2t/ac and the second wheat did 3.82t/ac. These crops came in at a KPH of between 72 and 77. Conor was happy with these yields given the year.

However, the wheat after oilseed rape and maize was a different story. They yielded about 2.82t/ac. Conor thinks the low yield is purely weather-driven as it was looking very good earlier in the year.

The first load of wheat came in at 22% moisture but this quickly fell to between 15 and 18%. Some of the wheat was treated with Grain pHro before being stored. Usually, the wheat would be sold but with low grain prices, it was decided that it made more sense to keep wheat to feed to the cows rather than buying in maize meal.

The majority of the wheat straw was chopped but what was baled yielded four 8x4x4 square bales/ac.

When talking to Conor last month, he was finishing up the winter barley and it ended up yielding just shy of 3.5t/ac. Some of the straw was chopped but what was baled yielded between 3.5 and 4 8x4x4 squares bales/ac.

The maize still looks very good. There’s a couple of spots where there are leaves starting to wilt but the crop does not seem to be suffering too much. Conor says the deep roots of the maize should keep it going. He is hopeful of a good yield this year and says the price will probably be higher too with many farmers short of fodder.

Shaun Diver, Tullamore Farm, Co Offaly

Tullamore Farm has received 26mm of rain over the past ten days. While it will help a bit, Shaun says more is needed to get grass moving. At the moment, it’s only really enough to green the grass up a bit.

The combi-crop of barley, oats and peas was mowed on 2 August and baled the following day. It yielded 10 bales/ac. Shaun is happy enough with this but says there might not be as much grain in the bales as other years.

He adds that he had to cut the crop because the peas were beginning to go yellow and ripen in, even when the cereals would still have had another week or more of grain fill. The crop was mowed and grouped into 30’ rows before being well chopped as it was baled.

Shaun would love to have planted forage rape into the combi-crop stubble straight after baling but he says the ground is rock hard and there would not be much point with the dry soil.

He will still plant the rape once the ground softens a bit, and with fodder reserves getting tight on the farm, he might plant another paddock with forage rape too; one that will be ploughed for barley next spring anyway.

The spring barley harvest started on Tuesday, with the field out of ley going under the knife. It was too early to give an indication of yield. Shaun says the headlands are disappointing which may be due to compaction but the middle of the field looks decent.

The field of barley that is after combi-crop looks fantastic. It’s still a week or ten days away from harvest but it was planted a week later too. Shaun says it looks like a super crop and some small areas are starting to lodge. It held its colour well throughout the drought so Shaun is hopeful of a good grain and straw yield.

Stephen Wallace, Mountrath, Co Laois

Stephen finished up his winter wheat on Sunday evening just as a shower of rain started to fall. It was not all over the weighbridge yet when talking to Stephen, but he expects the final yield to be between 3.5 and 3.6t/ac at 14.5 to 16.5% moisture content.

Stephen was happy with that considering it got a terrible start last autumn and with the recent drought too. He thinks it would have been a great crop in a normal summer.

The winter rye was cut just before the wheat. It yielded 3.5t/ac at moisture contents between 18 and 20%. There is lots of straw on the crop, at least 15 bales/ac.

Stephen was thinking of using the knives on the baler to chop the straw and see would anyone want the straw for feeding this winter.

The winter barley was cut very dry at moistures between 12.5 and 14%. One field did 3.5t/ac but the other only did 2.5t/ac. Stephen explains that he knew this field was a problem. It is in need of a break crop, and while the P and K indices are okay, it never gets organic manure due to the proximity to houses.

The winter oilseed rape is not yet cut. The pods are ripe but the stalks are still very green. It should be cut in the next few days with the heat bringing it in this week. The crop is taking a long time to ripen naturally but it was sowed very late too.

The spring oats are also due to be cut shortly, but Stephen does not expect a good yield. The spring barley looks well and should do a lot better but there are still plenty of green patches and it is at least another week away.

Stephen planted 17ac of cover crops for the Farming for Water EIP at the end of July as rain was forecast. This consisted of a non-brassica mixture containing phacelia, vetch, crimson clover and berseem clover.