FARMING IS “still not out of the woods yet” despite the unseasonable sunshine which hit Ireland late last week, a Teagasc spokesman said yesterday.
He said while a great deal of catch-up work on getting early cuts of silage had happened over the weekend and was continuing, the special advisory service to aid farmers to cope with bad weather would continue.
“It was a great boom to the industry to see such good sunshine over the weekend but we want more of that in order to stabilise things.”
He estimated that farm work was at least two to three weeks behind, and said it would be a major problem to get back to normal again over the next few weeks even if the good weather remained. “The main problem is that in areas where there are heavy soils the ground is still not dry enough for normal activities,” he said.
“But if the sunshine continues we will have the advantage of high temperatures and moisture, and this should really give a great stimulation to grass growth.
“The application of fertilisers now on grass, which has been retarded by the poor weather in May, is very important to help the recovery,” he said.
The spokesman said continuing sunshine was absolutely necessary for the spring barley crop, which required the kindness of sunshine to bring it on to where it should be at this time of year.
He added that the sunshine should also help cereal crops which had been hit by various wet-weather diseases.
A spokesman for the Irish Meteorological Service said he expected the fine weather to continue for most of this week.
“However, the temperatures will drop closer to June norms from the mid-20s we have experienced into the high teens,” he said.
He said temperatures of over 25 degrees Celsius had been recorded yesterday, levels which had not been recorded over the past two years.
“While there may be outbreaks of rain from time to time between here and the end of the week, they should be rare enough.
“It will be cooler from the weekend and more cloudy but it is difficult to say what levels of rain we can expect.”
He said forecasters were tracking areas of low pressure to the north and south of the country, which would deliver a change in the outlook.