The 2020 cereal harvest is virtually complete in most areas. Good progress was made over the past two weeks, helped by more settled weather in most areas.

Despite very wet conditions at the turn of the month, ground conditions had improved considerably. However, growers report that they still had to be mindful of wet areas in fields and headlands to avoid tracking.

The last of the spring barley, oats and wheat is being tidied up this week, although a limited number of growers, especially in the northeast and north, still have large areas to harvest.

On average, spring crops are performing above expectation. However, heavily weathered crops are notably back in yield compared to earlier harvested crops in the same area.

Spring-sown winter wheat crops have been very disappointing, with yields reported in the 0.8t/ac to 2.0t/ac range. Spring wheat was disappointing in many areas also and now spring beans appear to be performing below par across much of the south.

With nearly half the spring beans harvested across the southern half of the country, yield reports vary between 1.0t/ac and 2.5t/ac, with averages in some areas below 2t/ac.

Growers in the south are particularly disappointed, as crops there looked to have considerable potential but seed size is small. Winter-sown beans in the south were in the 2.8-3t/ac range.

Northwest

Harvest progress in the northwest region has been much more frustrated however. Counties Donegal and Derry, in particular, were robbed of harvesting opportunities over the past week because of broken weather.

According to Met Éireann, around 60ml of rain fell at the Malin Head weather station inside the last 10 days, while many other tillage regions received less then 5mm.

Around 20% of crops remain to be harvested in the region, with some lodging and a high amount of brackling now evident.

While the weather has been better this week, poor ground conditions and trafficability issues have been restricting progress.

Straw

Good progress has been made regarding baling and clearing of straw and interest has increased.

There is now very little straw unaccoutned for, with growers only having enough to meet regular customers. Difficulties in clearing fields have forced many farmers to miss the 15 September deadline for the establishment of cover crops under GLAS.