Teagasc has released its harvest report for 2024 and estimates that 1.9m tonnes of cereals were produced.

This is 300,000t below the five-year average of 2.2m tonnes and is similar to the harvest of 2023.

Cereal area declined by 9,500ha or 3.5% in 2024.

Within this decline there was a large decline in winter cereal area.

Teagasc outlined extremely wet months of weather in October, November, February, March and April as one of the major factors affecting planting and crop yields.

Winter cereals

Spring cropping only really started on 20 April 2024.

Teagasc reported that winter wheat area declined by 20% and yield declined from 9.50t/ha to 8.86t/ha.

Winter barley area declined by 19% and yield went from 8.70t/ha in 2023 to 8.13t/ha in 2024.

The winter oat area declined by 25% in 2024 and crop yield increased in this case with the average yield at 8.66t/ha in 2024 compared to 7.90t/ha in 2023.

In total, winter wheat area production was estimated by Teagasc to decline by a massive 118,700t, winter barley production declined by 105,300t and winter oats production declined by 13,400t. See table 1 for full details and for yields in tonnes per acre.

The figures are estimates from Teagasc and farmers reading this will no doubt have crop yields below these figures and above them.

There were huge ranges in yields this year and some crops performed very poorly, while others managed to maintain production.

Weather played a huge role in different regions of the country.

Spring crops

The spring barley area was 12,500ha above the five-year average as a result at 133,400ha. The summer weather allowed for good growth of spring barley and the crop yielded above average at 7.32t/ha.

Spring wheat area increased by 54% and yield went from 7.40t/ha in 2023 to 7.54t/ha in 2024.

Spring oats area increased by 31% and the yield increased moving from 6.50t/ha in 2023 to 7.68t/ha in 2024.

Looking at spring barley production and it increased by an estimated 166,600t.

Spring wheat production was up 18,500t and spring oats production was up by an estimated 58,700t.

This brought total cereal production to 1.918m tonnes, up an estimated 6,400t from 2023.

Oilseed rape and beans

Winter oilseed rape area was down 30% and yield dropped from 4.5t/ha in 2023 to 4t/ha in 2024.

The spring beans area increased by 9% and average yield has been estimated at 5.2t/ha in 2024 compared to 5t/ha in 2023. There are of course bean crops still to be cut and crops were still being cut when the figures were being compiled.

It should be noted that the crop area figures for 2024 are preliminary figures and yields for 2024 are Teagasc estimates.