Patrick Dehaene

North Dublin

“This is the first year in 65 that I have no winter crops in the ground,” said Patrick Dehaene from north Dublin. While many of his neighbours have some planting done, Patrick is happy not to have planted given that so many crops have seeds continuously sitting in water. However, he still hopes to get up to 200ac of winter wheat planted before mid-February.

Patrick decided to concentrate on potato harvesting and he is now down to the last four acres. Yields were slightly above average for the crop and quality was excellent.

Pat O’Meara

Pat O'Meara.

South Tipperary

Pat finished over 500ac of winter cereals last week, mostly in reasonable to good conditions. About half of this was his own land, with the rest for customers. About 135ac were sown to winter barley, with 75ac to oats and 30ac to winter wheat.

All the land was ploughed ahead of planting. He began planting in the first week of October and those crops are now well up, looking very good and they have been sprayed with herbicide and insecticide.

His fodder beet yields are good but markets are difficult this year.

Stephen Collins

Stephen Collins, Cork.

East Cork

“We are a little over 70% through winter planting,” Stephen said, “but this could be the end of it for now.” It was a very difficult back end but his region had less rain than many other parts thus far in November.

Planting began around mid-October and the last crop was sown last Friday. This crop of winter wheat was sown directly following fodder beet harvesting.

Stephen has more wheat sown than barley, with around 75% of the intended wheat area in the ground and 65% of his revised barley acreage.

Philip Doyle

Philip Doyle.

Kildare

“We decided to take some old advice and muck it in early, rather than late, and this helped us get up about 75% of our intended winter wheat and barley area drilled,” Philip Doyle from Rathangan said. “We do have some wet land but this was pulled out of our intended area from the start this year.

“We began planting on 1 October and drilled away whenever possible until Halloween, when everything came to a definite halt. We have had 82mm in November so far so any further planting seems unlikely. The early crops are emerging and crows and slugs are a worry.”