From a farming point of view, 2023 will definitely go down as one to forget!

As usual, the year started off dark and wet, with a bit of snow towards the end of January.

Myself and a colleague set out at 3am one January morning, in a VW Passat and 4in of snow, destined for a meeting in Cork.

We wondered on several occasions if we were completely mad, one of us waiting for the other to say we’ll turn back, but we kept going another bit, then another bit.

Eventually the temperature dropped to -10C and the snow disappeared, driving conditions improved and after a few stops we reached the Moorepark Research Centre in Fermoy around 10.15am, to find cows out grazing, I might add!

The Cork lads don’t know they’re living!

Fair enough, there were a few lads in west Cork that didn’t make the meeting, reason being they had some snow!

Weather picked up a bit towards the end of February, which allowed me to get half the farm covered with slurry, but then things went pear shaped again and it was early April before I managed to get the remainder out.

Stock got to grass in mid-April and although definitely not perfect, things plodded along reasonably unhindered for the next month.

Dry conditions

The first cut of red clover was taken on 18 May in fairly decent conditions, but fast forward a few days from this and we were experiencing absolutely glorious weather.

Blue skies and warm sunshine all the way, I never in my life saw so much dust coming off farm roadways and I also managed to make the first hay on the farm in almost 30 years.

Of course, we all started to complain - it was getting too dry. We could do with a wee drop of rain and after about three to four weeks of heaven, we got what we were looking for.

But, as is always the case in Ireland, there’s no such thing as a wee drop of rain. The rain started and boy did it rain!

Wet conditions

Summer 2023 saw the warmest June on record, as well as the wettest July on record.

Ground conditions on this farm had been so dry that they were able to hold up to the rain for quite a while, but eventually things started to get soft and mucky.

I cut my second cut of red clover on 3 July in what I thought - according to the forecast - was a window of dry weather.

Unfortunately, the forecast changed after I had it mowed and it couldn’t have been baled much wetter. Cattle love it all the same, which is interesting to see.

I also burned off a field for reseeding on 11 July which had to get another half rate of glyphosate on 7 August, the day before it was reseeded.

There hadn’t been an opportunity to get the job done before this and things had started to green up again.

September respite

Early September saw a little respite again, with around a week of lovely warm sunshine, which thankfully allowed a lot of work to be tied up, especially in the tillage sector.

But alas that was the end of it. I had a lot of cattle housed by the end of September and have been feeding hard ever since.

Store lambs have been clipping off the remaining grass ever since and, in fairness, there has been quite a lot of grass.

Things have been wet, but temperatures haven’t been bad, so grass has been growing away slowly.

Anyway, the year is over and we move on into 2024 with hopeful anticipation of a better one.

Let's face it, it can’t be much worse. I hope!

Happy new year everyone.