Cereal farmers who lost money on their crops last year are reluctant to plant their spring crops despite the favourable weather of the past few weeks.
The first of the annual tillage crop reports for the year from Teagasc said: “Virtually no spring crops are sown except limited areas of oats, wheat, malting barley and beans.
“A certain amount of ploughing has been done but growers are very much undecided on planting decisions as margins are extremely tight even in high-yielding situations,” it added.
The Irish Farmers Association (IFA) said yesterday that the spring barley crops – the largest proportion of spring sowings – were likely to be back by anywhere up to 40 per cent.