A bumper harvest of winter cereal crops, the best in 30 years, has been predicted by an Irish tillage expert.
Dr Jim O'Mahoney, Teagasc's chief tillage adviser, said he expected yields to be very high when harvesting begins in two months time.
"The winter conditions were perfect for sowing and the weather was fine all the way through. Disease levels are low and the crop structure is such that I believe we will have a bumper yield," he said yesterday.
Dr O'Mahoney said the only downside this year was an infestation of aphids, (greenfly) which he said had reached "semi-epidemic" proportions.
"Most cereal crops will have to be sprayed against the aphid in the next week or so because there is a growing problem," he said.
He said the only problems he had encountered with spring sown cereal crops was that some were suffering from drought on lighter soils in the south east. However, the problems were not acute.
Meanwhile, it has been estimated by Teagasc that almost 50 per cent of the main harvest in Ireland, grass, has already been saved. Mr Michael Miley, the Teagasc spokesman, said that unlike the previous two years, silage harvesting was well advanced.
"We expect that 50 per cent of the silage crop will be saved by the end of this week and enormous work is going on out there," he said.
"The weather has been ideal for both growing and harvesting unlike the previous two years when there were serious problems," he said.
"While most people will remember last summer as a good one, for farmers, early summer was very difficult and only 20 per cent of silage was saved at this time last year," he said.
"The previous year was a complete disaster and machines could not get into the fields at all and there were grave difficulties," he said.
Mr Miley said silage was now the preferred winter forage crop and just over 20 million tonnes of it was harvested annually.
"Only small amounts of hay are saved annually and in good years where hay is easily made because of the weather, it could account for about 10 per cent of winter feed," he said.
He said farmers liked to make some hay for convenience, especially if they had fragmented farms, as hay was easier to transport than silage.