We are now into the tedious stage of making sure that the premium tillage crops that we grow qualify for the maximum possible payment. For this, a few conditions have to be met.

For our winter barley destined for the brewing market, pre-harvest Roundup is not allowed.

If any trace is found and given the sensitivity of modern analysis, extremely low levels are capable of being detected, then all premium top-ups are lost and presumably the likelihood of being awarded future contracts is wiped out, so we will not use any.

The crop itself looks even and the weeds have been well controlled but, inevitably, some of the tramlines will, when it comes to harvest, have some green tillers which will mean that the straw will have to have a day or two of dry weather before being fit to bale.

This makes it a difficult product for some of my stud farming neighbours who want spotless, dry, even straw with no weathering effect.

So we are in effect forced on to the normal commercial market.

So far, we have no real price indicators. For both the gluten-free oats and the seed wheat, we try to strim the full perimeter of the fields to get rid of the sterile brome, as well as cleaning up the headlands.

This also gives us a chance to spot any wild oats or rogue barley plants that we may have missed in previous inspections of the fields.

Both crops are inspected by either the Department in the case of the seed wheat or by the customer in the case of the gluten-free oats. This year, we have hardly any lodging despite the wind and rain. Hopefully, we are past the danger periods at this stage.

Cattle

On the cattle side, cutting the first cut that bit later and the high cost of fertiliser has meant that we wanted to make as much use of the slurry as we could.

Everywhere has got some which should mean that just straight nitrogen will suffice for the second cut.

While the price is significantly back on the peak April price, it is still over €750/t, well over three times what I would normally expect to pay.

The new dilemma now is when do we buy at least a proportion of our needs forward for use next spring?