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It had survived the storms in November – the lashes of rain in February and the incredible snow in March but the unrelenting heat and dryness of May/June and most of July was too much for my oats. It had looked all along to be an excellent crop and it delivered a terrific crop of straw but the well over 56 bushel of the last two years evaporated as the dry, hot weather dragged on.
It exactly bore out John Finnan of Teagasc’s talk at a growers’ meeting in Athy in the spring when he said that oats in a dry, hot, early summer seem to give up the will to live. Ultimately, we harvested about 3.3t to the acre compared with the normal 4t, so a significant penalty. Last year, we never got to bale the straw due to the wet autumn and ploughed it in. This year, it’s all safely baled just ahead of the rain so that will go some way, but nowhere near all the way to reducing the loss.
On the water front, as we are not on the mains, I am actually conscious of how our own supplies are bearing up with a continuing heavy demand from the cattle.
Of the two streams on the place, one has completely dried up. I remember vividly this happening with the same stream in 1984 and in 1995, I think, but not in the 23 years since then. The other stream starts with a spring on our own land. As far as I know, it has never run dry. I have been advised to keep open the possibility of tapping it by encasing it in a large, open concrete pipe but I am no hydrologist and am reluctant to tamper with it in case I divert it away from its present course. In the meantime, I have had our excellent plumbing contractor out to examine our deep well on which both house and yard are dependent. He assured me all was fine but as he said, there are no guarantees with water so we are considering backup plans – some kind of rain harvesting system seems the most logical.
Meanwhile, we are continuing to sell cattle as they become fit and get slurry out in ideal conditions. The endless rhythm of farming continues.
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