In pictures: September ends but the harvest goes on 28 September 2016 Premium

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Pat O'Toole on 28 Sep 2016

In pictures: September ends but the harvest goes on

Tillage farmers continue to battle the weather and diminishing crops as they try to bring Harvest 2016 to a close.

Pat O'Toole on 28 Sep 2016

David O' Brien, Ardfield, Co. Cork checks the condition of a field of spring oats that he has yet to cut. David has 90 acres of barley and oats, of which he still has 40 acres to cut. The harvest would normally be finished by the second week of September but this year it is turning into a disaster with thousands of acres still to be cut in south and south west Cork with crops sprouting, heads gone to ground, oats sheding grains and no spring straw baled. Photo: Donal O' Leary

David O' Brien, Ardfield, Co. Cork checks the condition of a field of spring oats that he has yet to cut. David has 90 acres of barley and oats, of which he still has 40 acres to cut. The harvest would normally be finished by the second week of September but this year it is turning into a disaster with thousands of acres still to be cut in south and south west Cork with crops sprouting, heads gone to ground, oats sheding grains and no spring straw baled. Photo: Donal O' Leary

An example of spring oats sprouting in the field owned by David O' Brien, Ardfield, Co. Cork. David has 90 acres of barley and oats, of which he still has 40 acres to cut. The harvest would normally be finished by the second week of September but this year it is turning into a disaster with thousands of acres still to be cut in south and south west Cork with crops sprouting, heads gone to ground, oats sheding grains and no spring straw baled. Photo: Donal O' Leary

An example of spring oats sheding grains in the field owned by David O' Brien, Ardfield, Co. Cork. David has 90 acres of barley and oats, of which he still has 40 acres to cut. The harvest would normally be finished by the second week of September but this year it is turning into a disaster with thousands of acres still to be cut in south and south west Cork with crops sprouting, heads gone to ground, oats sheding grains and no spring straw baled. Photo: Donal O' Leary

David O' Brien's combine lies idle in a field of spring oats at Ardfield, Co. Cork that has yet to be cut due to adverse weather conditions over the last month. David has 90 acres of barley and oats, of which he still has 40 acres to cut. The harvest would normally be finished by the second week of September but this year it is turning into a disaster with thousands of acres still to be cut in south and south west Cork with crops sprouting, heads gone to ground, oats sheding grains and no spring

David O' Brien, Ardfield, Co. Cork. David has 90 acres of barley and oats, of which he still has 40 acres to cut. The harvest would normally be finished by the second week of September but this year it is turning into a disaster with thousands of acres still to be cut in south and south west Cork with crops sprouting, heads gone to ground, oats sheding grains and no spring straw baled. Photo: Donal O' Leary

At least 4,000ha of corn remains to be cut, as the end of September brings no end to the marathon, disastrous, harvest of 2016. According to Teagasc’s Kieran Collins, about 2,000ha of crop was still to be harvested in Cork as of Wednesday, with limited windows to make progress. The news is no better up the country, with over 40% of the spring barley crop unharvested in Donegal, and little cutting achieved across the west. Corn is now flat on the ground, and what has been cut is mostly at high moisture levels.

The extension to sow catch crops for GLAS and greening expires on Friday (30 September), but there has been limited progress in this work either.

See more photos from David O'Brien's farm in Co Cork in our picture gallery above.

Even where weather was not so bad, work remains. Straw is on the ground and getting more difficult to salvage by the day, as it rots with each wetting and green re-growth strangles it. Straw demand is now strong, but the quality of whatever is now baled will be compromised. Some oilseed rape and quite a lot of beans remain to be harvested.

Work is now due for autumn planting. Land that is in any way marginal is likely to be left fallow following last year’s wash-out, but the economics of growing in all but the best scenarios are seriously in question like never before. Put bluntly, should a farmer want to sow a crop, he must have access to finance to proceed. We are genuinely in uncharted territory.

Listen to three western IFA chairmen describe the situation in their counties in our podcast below:

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