Donald Logue
Muff, Co Donegal
Donald has been very busy in the past week, as he started digging his maincrop potatoes on 24 September. He says it is the first time he has seen dust coming from his potato harvester since 2015 or 2016. This means that Donald must be extra careful to ensure no damage is caused when harvesting the potatoes, but he says damage is at a very low level so far. However, there is some common scab present on some potatoes.
This is also the first time that Donald has ever harvested his maincrop potatoes as an organic farmer in September. Last year, he did not finish harvesting until the second week of November. The harvest was very slow going on unfavourable ground.
The yield is better than last year too, so Donald is happy enough with the crop. He estimated that he was nearing the halfway mark of his potato harvest at the weekend and another few dry days would help him to finish up.
Once the potatoes are harvested, they are stored on-farm. Donald then grades the crop and sells them as orders come in. He does not have cold storage on the farm, but the potatoes tend to keep quite well over the winter until about the middle of February.
The selling of the potatoes can be as challenging as growing them. If it were easy, everyone would be doing it, he says.
Once harvesting is finished, Donald hopes to plough the ground after the mixed crop and to then plant organic winter oats for feed. This will hopefully take advantage of the residual nitrogen left in the soil following the legumes in the mixed crop.
Donald is waiting on a contractor to come to dry and crush the grain from the mixed crop. He will then sell the crop in bulk bags to local organic farmers.
Brian Crowley
Ballycotton, Co Cork
September has been a quieter month compared to August for Brian. The rain finally arrived in early September and there was a total of 116mm for the Ballycotton area for the month.
It was welcomed by the winter oilseed rape, helping it to have a great start. Brian applied 2.5kg/ha of Axcela slug pellets post emergence. It also got 0.82l/ha of Falcon for the volunteer barley that had come through, and 70ml/ha of Ninja to control cabbage stem flea beetles.
Last week, Brian got cattle slurry onto some of the oilseed rape as a trial, because he did not get a chance to apply it before sowing. He says ground was never so good to travel with the tanker. He has a 12m dribble bar, so there was not too much damage with 24m tramlines in place.
He started sowing winter barley on Monday; a seed crop of Littoral after beans was first to go in. The fields got one run of the tine grubber before being sown with the one pass. Brian also has Integral and KWS Tardis to be sown. He will move onto Champion winter wheat after that.
The fodder beet has grown well over the summer with the dry weather helping it to grow longer and deeper in search of moisture. With animals still doing well on grass, Brian won’t be pulling anything for the moment.
He is still waiting to hear from a few dairy customers to see when they want it.
Current grain and pulse prices are driving a lot of cropping decisions for harvest 2026 on the farm.
The cropping areas will stay mainly the same; an increase in winter oilseed rape and fodder crops to match price and demand are the only significant changes. Brian says it’s disappointing to hear the current malting barley price and it is made worse by a drying charge, in a year when crops were delivered at below average moistures across the country.
Denis Dunne
Faithlegg, Co Waterford
With the early harvest, September has been a great month for Denis to catch up on paperwork and get smaller jobs done. On the other hand, it has been a very busy month for the seed plant, as there is a high demand for seed early in the autumn this year.
Denis and the team took soil samples on the farm last week, and are waiting for the results – which will feed into their nutrient management plan next spring.
The winter oilseed rape and cover crops are doing really well this year. The oilseed rape is at six to eight true leaves and is very healthy. Due to the very dry weather at sowing, and a weather forecast of heavy rain, Denis made the decision to not apply a pre-emergence herbicide to the crop. It will get Belkar and a graminicide over the next few weeks, followed by Proline for light leaf spot and phoma, along with trace elements of boron and manganese.
Winter rye trials were planted on 25 September in excellent conditions. Denis sowed a few plots of wheat, barley and oats early again this year. These plots are used in early spring to demonstrate the risks of early sowing, such as extra virus and disease pressure, along with the damage late frost can do to these crops, especially oats.
The plan is to begin planting winter barley in the next few days, weather dependent, and then follow that with the wheat plots.
A good proportion of the barley varieties in trial now have BYDV tolerance, with several hybrid varieties also having resistance genes towards BYDV.
KWS Joyau and SY Canyon are being sown as the commercial varieties on the trial site this year, and KWS Equipe as the commercial wheat crop.
Where weather allows, a pre-emergence herbicide of Firebird Met will be applied to the wheat and barley, targeting annual meadow grass. Oats will be sown after 16 October, and the variety will be Husky.