After just a few days of searing heat, I was glad to see some significant rainfall, as long as it stops there.

We had nothing like the deluge in Donegal, but it was remarkable how the rain reversed the wilting that the beans were suffering in the heat and they are now a vibrant green again.

During the fine spell, we got all the winter barley straw baled and removed and have begun some stubble cultivation to fit in with the new regulations.

By the end of this week, weather-permitting, we hope to have the oilseed rape finished.

We have received an official note from the Department of Agriculture that both the oats and oilseed rape straw have been registered for the straw incorporation scheme so we are now really into the harvest period.

Even though I have heard of oats being harvested locally, ours I reckon is still some way off.

We have two varieties of wheat - one for seed and one commercial. The latter is significantly more advanced but I don’t think I have ever harvested wheat before August 15th, so there are still a few weeks to go.

With the drop in forward cereal prices, we diverted a full lorry load of winter barley - surplus to what we had sold forward - to a local neighbour for drying, storage and rolling for the cattle.

Depending on wheat yields and price developments, we will probably do the same with a proportion of the wheat. The first priority, however, has to be to meet our contractual obligations on what we have sold in advance.

On the cattle side, we have now finished weighing the cattle that have been grazing all summer. The average daily gain of 0.7 kg masks a huge variation which emphasises the importance of breeding in the production of dairy cross steers.

At the dairy grassland meeting in Cork, I was struck by the overwhelming importance put on gestation length when dairy farmers are picking the beef bulls to put on their cows.

Again this is a highly inherited trait which is not correlated with high weight gain in the resultant progeny - information should be available to the purchaser.