Barley passing for malting but yields vary

It has been slow going in Galway, with crops taking their time to ripen in and the weather proving difficult at times. Conall says the best cutting day of the year was last Saturday, but he unfortunately spent most of it trying to fix his broken-down combine.

He has managed to finish his own spring barley, but there is plenty of barley left to cut on hire. The crop yielded between 2.3 and 2.7t/ac, with an average of 2.5t/ac.

Moisture content was good, at 16%-18%, with just the occasional trailer load slightly higher as Conall tried to get the work done.

There were between six and eight round bales/ac on the spring barley. Conall says it is very difficult to get results from spring barley in his part of the country, as it just doesn’t suit the land and the weather.

He tries to grow as many winter crops as possible, but as seen over the past two years, that does not always happen.

The first bit of spring oats was harvested on Sunday, but it is too early to give any type of yield with no trailers over the weighbridge yet.

The spring beans are very slow to ripen in. Although the leaves died off the plant a few weeks ago, the pods and stalks are still very green. Conall hopes that there might be some fields to cut in three weeks’ time, but that could easily be pushed back once again if the weather does not suit.

Tramlines are being subsoiled at present also, to undo some of the damage done to the soil this year. Some grassy stubbles are being sprayed off too in preparation for the planting of winter crops.

Conall says he has also been very busy at silage up to last weekend, but he thinks it will calm down shortly.

The harvest has progressed well in Waterford, with Pádraig finishing his own spring barley. The weather was poor for over a week until last weekend when he got a lot of work done.

The Geraldine spring barley for Irish Distillers via Denn Agri yielded 3.1t/ac at 20% moisture and a KPH of 63.

The Laureate spring barley for Boortmalt through Southern Fuel & Farm Supplies yielded 2.8t/ac at a moisture content of 18% and a hectolitre weight of 64. 70% of the contracted tonnage passed for distilling, with the remaining 30% going for brewing.

Finally, Pádraig had some Planet for the Malting Company of Ireland through Tirlán. This crop had a very good bushel weight of 67KPH and was cut at 20% moisture, but the yield disappointed, at 2.5t/ac.

The crop was sown on 1 May and it got five days of rain post-drilling, so establishment was poor. Pádraig knew it was thin all year, but is happy that it still passed for malting.

Most of the barley has baled up at 7.5 bales/ac, but the Planet has not yet been baled. Pádraig was hoping to bale it this week and was expecting it to yield six bales/ac due to the thin crop.

Pádraig has 50ac of spring oats to cut this week but says that the tramlines are still quite green despite the rest of the crop being ripe.

The spring beans are ripening in too and could be ripe by the end of the month, but this could be later too.

Pádraig has 80ac of cover crops planted after winter crops, while 34ac of spring barley stubbles destined for beans have been disced and a cover crop will be planted this week before rolling.

Pádraig also has 24ac of cover crops to plant for ACRES, but these fields have not been cleared yet. It will be a priority to get this straw baled and cleared in order for this to be planted.

The cereal harvest is over in Meath, with just the maize left to do in a few weeks’ time.

The winter wheat did well on the farm, averaging 4.4t/ac at a moisture content of 19%. Sam was happy with this, but he knew the crop had potential throughout the year and thinks it could have done even better with better grain-fill conditions.

There was a good swarth of straw from the crop, and this has been baled and the fields have been cleared. Sam was delighted to get this baled dry, as the spring barley straw is proving more difficult due to showers and the shorter days.

Sam finished harvesting spring barley on Sunday, with a large proportion of the crop averaging 3.3t/ac at moisture contents of 19% and 20%, but there is still some grain to be weighed. There is also a good amount of straw and Sam is trying to get it baled this week.

Tramlines have been subsoiled to alleviate soil compaction where required after the wet spring. All ground that is destined for maize next year has been cultivated, and a cover crop of forage rape and stubble turnips has been planted.

There will be no winter oilseed rape on the farm this year. Sam thinks it does not suit the farm, and the winter cereals with maize as a break crop is working well.

The forage maize will probably be harvested in the first week of October. Sam is very happy with it so far, with all plants having two cobs.

Ground conditions are very good at the moment too, so Sam tells us that it could cope with a good bit of rain while still being in a good condition for the maize harvest.

The fourth cut of silage is also being harvested this week.