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It’s like the Burren up there,” exclaimed Alison, after returning from a walk through the fields with her mother. It’s not something they would often do, but a few lockdown Sundays ago, I had brought Mrs P on a similar walk to revisit the wilderness – as I call it – in Tulnagee, which is the field that slopes lazily down to Kildalkey village.
It’s an attractive field, with thick and high boundary hedges nicely breasted with a low hedge on our adjoining side. I wrote about the wilderness before so I won’t go into it again, except to say it’s about 5ac at the bottom of Tulnagee which, due to impeded drainage outfalls, became too wet to crop. I had to leave it idle, untouched and, ironically now, without subsidy.
That was at height of the Celtic Tiger years, so about 15 years ago. Green Party agriculture spokesperson Pippa Hackett would just love this re-wilded area, with its return to nature and the way trees have taken over, mostly silvery willows, in a lovely random manner.
In fact, the Green Party would be more at home on our farm than you might think, but we have fundamental differences which could be hard to reconcile.
While I haven’t seen any wolves, there is certainly lots of wildlife. The wilderness also borders a natural pond, which is great for biodiversity, with dragon flies and reed mace and all that sort of thing.
Dry weather
Anyhow, I’ve digressed badly, so back to Alison’s Burren comment, which puzzled me. On asking her, she said the large cracks in the winter wheat soil looked like the natural crazy limestone pavements in the Burren, which indeed they do. They’re big enough to lose a mobile phone in.
For it has been very dry here. I’ve recorded just 33mm from St Patrick’s Day until Tuesday 26 May, which is exactly 10 weeks. We’ve often had that much in a day. The deep-rooted winter oilseed rape has obviously fared best and looks fine.
Winter wheat is a vibrant blue-green colour but, as I’ve said before, is thin – it’s more to do with the autumn deluge than the spring drought.
Plants didn’t tiller and roots didn’t develop as they should. Had they done so, the drought now wouldn’t be a problem on heavy soils.
The winter oats are ultra-short (like the wheat) and look fine, but they won’t yield either. Wheaten straw – maybe all straw – will be a collector’s item.
Spring crops
The spring crops are now parched for water. While the barley looks reasonably well, I fear it will push out a flag leaf at about 10in high, which can’t be good.
It’s a pity – there was great potential. I fear a North American-type harvest in terms of yield. However, while rain would now do little or nothing for the winter crops, it would save the spring crops.
The spring beans look good, but beans like a good growthy year when they can do their usual “Jack and the Beanstalk” thing.
It’s different this year. It’s not altogether the lack of rainfall as much the continual drying winds, stifling growth and relentlessly sucking up soil moisture.
But you wouldn’t want to pray too hard for rain. The heavens have a tendency to become overly exuberant in this regard and while a couple of inches would be nice, we don’t want it to rain for the rest of the summer.
Now that we’re done with no-mow-May, I’ve a couple of light dandelion meadows to mow for silage. That, or spraying Roundup, usually brings rain. Oh dear – by mentioning Roundup, I’ve just spoiled my truce with the Green Party. And I was going great...
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