“Jaysus, I don’t fancy your job,” said the shed painter in his proud Dublin accent, “it would do me bleedin’ head in.”

I’d just returned to the yard – again – with an oilseed rape sample to moisture test. At 14%, it was too high and anyhow, once more, there were drops of rain on the windscreen.

The painter was right. The life of a tillage farmer in broken harvest weather is pretty frustrating. There certainly are times when it could do your bleedin’ head in. For your head is cracked from endlessly tracking Met Éireann’s rainfall radar and repeatedly checking forecasts from half a dozen apps, all showing more of what you don’t want to see.

It’s enough to make you wish you were a dairy farmer

It’s the waiting around, unable to focus on anything else that’s the toughest. I was on standby for the entire August bank holiday weekend, and got nothing done until the Monday evening. It’s enough to make you wish you were a dairy farmer. Well, it’s not actually that bad – a drystock farmer would be fine. Cattle are better this year and stores were good value last autumn.

However, there’s a great sense of camaraderie among tillage farmers, particularly in a difficult harvest. But don’t admit to having shite yields until you hear what your friend on the phone has to say.

I know of two former tillage farmers who got out of the business largely because of oilseed rape-induced-stress

The oilseed rape harvest is more stressful, as it’s a high value crop and vulnerable to shedding at harvest time. With that said, most of the winter OSR varieties carry the pod shatter resistance gene, which is a hugely beneficial characteristic introduced a few years ago.

Nonetheless, it’s always a good feeling when the rape is harvested. I know of two former tillage farmers who got out of the business largely because of oilseed rape-induced-stress.

Why grow it?

You may ask, why grow it at all? The short answer is that it’s usually a lucrative crop that provides a good entry for first wheat.

However, it’s not quite that simple. Every combinable crop has its weakness when the weather is not with you. Rape sheds, wheat sprouts, barley brackles, oats go flat and soggy beans bung up the unloading auger – not good. And rape, like all crops, is not immune to lodging. Flat rape is arguably the most notorious of all crops to harvest.

I specifically remember harvesting flat rape on a weekend about 25 years ago, when there was a family wedding. It was a German variety, which would choke the intake auger every single metre that I’d go forward. One metre forward and two back for 40ac.

So perhaps now you understand why Irish tillage farmers are an endangered species

Well, I cursed the entire German nation and reserved the most truly awful – even horrendous – curses for the German plant breeders for developing such a lousy, weak-strawed variety.

So perhaps now you understand why Irish tillage farmers are an endangered species, and that’s without even mentioning grain prices falling ever behind machinery and input inflation.

The recent Tillage Industry Ireland report tells us that the national area under tillage has declined by over 40% since the 1980s, with a similar reduction in growers. Combine headers are now as wide as sprayers were back then, but the difference is that one man and his machine has to do so much more.

Almost enough do your bleedin’ head in

Back then, maybe you ran a couple of combines, but now it’s one. And if that one breaks down in catchy weather – and they do – the blood pressure to get moving reaches a head-splitting 1,000 bar. Almost enough do your bleedin’ head in.

Stop press – most of the rape has been harvested and came it at 1.91t/ac at under 13% moisture.