Our solar project is showing new life. Some years ago, I gave an option to a company to build one on the farm. Since then the original company has gone out of business and its options were taken over by another group.

I had to give consent for the transfer and once that was done, they duly undertook an exhaustive series of environmental surveys and have just recently installed a small monitoring station to record how much sunlight is falling on the proposed site.

The next step presumably will be an update on how the planning application to the local authority is going though.

With the surge in energy prices and Ireland’s lack of storage facilities for natural gas, one would imagine that the priority would be for as much nationally generated energy as possible, so we will see.

Record temperatures

The record November temperatures are driving grass growth in a way you might expect in a mild, early March.

It’s a different, denser growth to the usual autumn spurt we see in September. What I would like to know is how nutritious is this early winter grass, especially with regard to the sugar content we associate with the lengthening days of spring?

I must admit that this curiosity is influenced to some extent by our tight silage supplies.

Extra grazing

We are taking an extra grazing from some of the paddocks with the heaviest covers. We are keeping the grazing light to avoid to the greatest extent possible paying a price in the spring for keeping cattle out too long.

The mild weather and high soil temperatures are also driving crop and weed growth.

The oilseed rape has more charlock flowering in it than I would like. I am assuming that as we have sown a Clearfield variety, that we will be able to control the infestation.

The oats, which is now more than a week in the ground, is showing signs of emerging, following oilseed rape. I regard slugs as inevitable so we hired in our usual specialist with his ATV-mounted spreader and got the pellets spread with minimal damage.