The coming week will see a lot of dry weather overall. Some weather fronts are forecast to cross the country, from the Atlantic at times, but these look set to be weak with just small amounts of rain and will do very little to alleviate the drought conditions.

The early days of next week look set to see a lot of dry weather. However, there are indications of some heavy showers later next week, but there is a lot of uncertainty about this feature still. At present, accumulations look set to vary between around 5mm and 10mm for most areas.

A mix of cloudy periods and sunny spells are expected this coming week, and accumulated sunshine amounts are likely be close to normal in most areas.

Due to intense drying there is a red-level forest fire warning in operation. Yellow drought advisory remains in operation also. Currently there are good spraying conditions, but caution is required due to leaf scorch in high temperatures.

Management notes

This week's notes cover the poor slaughter performance in lambs, Darren Carty discussesthe spike in blowfly strike and meal feeding lambs post-weaning under the Sheep Welfare Scheme.

In what has been a very tough week on drystock farms, Adam Woods gives some management advice to help drystock farmers through this challenging period.

Aidan Brennan looks at the drought situation on farms and what actions farmers can take.

Crops continue to ripen faster than expected and the earlier harvest now provides an opportunity to get additional income from either catch or fodder crops asAndy Doyle reports.