I farm: “Over 200ac of tillage with my son, Ken, and wife, Nuala. A sizeable amount of it is rented but it’s becoming more and more difficult for arable farmers to compete with dairy farmers for land. It’d be totally uneconomical for arable farmers to give what they’re giving for land.”

Crops: “We have just over 40ac of winter oats sown, as well as 30ac of oilseed rape, about 25ac of winter barley and some winter wheat. The rest is mainly spring barley but this depends on rotations.”

Harvest 2023: “This year was one of the earliest harvests I’ve ever experienced. We got the winter barley harvested last weekend but it broke down seriously – it was the six-row variety, Belfry. It seemed to be quite common with winter wheat this year. There has been very little lodging up until this week really. On Friday, we got very heavy rain and high winds. That’s a combination to do harm. We have autumn-sown winter oats that are on the point of being ripe; then oilseed rape will be directly after that. It’ll be three weeks before the spring barley is ready.”

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Soil: “The part of Wexford we’re in, by nature, has a very heavy type of soil. There’d be a huge difference in our soils compared to north Wexford, near Bunclody. They’d have much more free-draining soils. We would never sow here until after 20 March. We’d be too fearful of sowing too early in case of water logging.”

Grain price: “We deal with three grain merchants here – Wallace Agri in Wellingtonbridge, Cooney Furlong and Ballyhamillton Agri. Last year we were very happy with prices but unfortunately grain prices are governed by global prices and, this year, forward prices are at least €100/t back on last year. We were lucky last year because we had good weather, good price and good yields.”

Inputs: “Our inputs are way up. Unfortunately, we bought 60% to 70% of our fertiliser last autumn when it was very high [in price]. Sprays are also up 10% to 15%.”

Quotable quote: “Farming people my age will remember the harvest of 1958. It was an awfully wet harvest and we ran into a lot of bother. Then 1959 was one of the best.”