For farmers with crops to cut and bale it’s been a tough week. In the last weekend of August farmers had about three and a half days to get work done.

However, there has been little opportunity since then. Overall, across the country there may be 75% of the cereal harvest in, but a large proportion of work is still to be done in some areas and on some farms.

Growers tried crops on Thursday evening last week and cut Friday and Saturday, but with late starts and heavy dew, the days were short and moisture contents were high.

This resulted in many farmers cutting crops with over 20%, and up to 23%, moisture content.

Monday provided some drying to get levels below 20%, but a large-amount of crops remain green as a result of the late sowing season.

On a positive note, yields are holding up, with many farmers still yielding over 2.5t/ac, with the range probably moving to 2t/ac to under 3t/ac on spring barley. In the north eats yields are holding over 3t/ac.

On the Irish Farmers Journaltillage podcast, Stradbally Town and Country’s Martin McDonald urged growers not to apply glyphosate to unharvested malting barley crops, as this rules them out for malting straight away and the grower then has no chance of receiving the price premium.

Spring oats are proving hard to ripen, but are doing over 3t/ac for many.

Some have made a start on spring wheat, while some winter wheat is still being wrapped up this week.

The delayed harvest is not helping oilseed rape plantings.

Industry reports suggest the crop will decline in area again, falling back to possibly 10,000-12,000ha from 15,000ha this year and 20,500ha last year. Oilseed rape can be planted out until 20 September. Some early-sown beans have been cut and results are mixed and more to be cut. However, many late-April sown crops are a few weeks away.