Downpours take toll on acres of spring barley

THUNDEROUS downpours at the weekend have taken their toll on farm-land in parts of the north west, flattening acres of spring barley not yet ready for harvesting.

Limavady farmer Jim Fulton says he expects his yield to be down by about 20 per cent after sustained heavy rain over a four-hour period on Saturday evening flattened his field of spring barley.

Mr Fulton’s family has been breeding sheep and growing cereals on the farmland at Myroe since the early 1940s. Around 16 acres of spring barley, which is due to be harvested in late August/early September, was aff-ected by Saturday’s rainfall.

“When it goes down at that stage the heads don’t really fill out as well and your yield could probably be down around 20 per cent, you’ll still get the same bulk but it just won’t be in the grain,” he told FarmWeek. “It’s just not going to be as good as it was or it should have been.

“It actually gave heavier rain for the Sunday evening than it did for the Saturday, but with that heat you just knew there was going to be a real downpour of thunder and lightning,” he added.

However, he believes he is fortunate to have only suffered damage to one field of crops when some of his neighbours have up to 200 acres of spring barley in the ground, adding further costs when it comes to harvesting.

“It just leads to a more awkward harvest, slower, more fuel and it never dries out just as well as when it’s standing, it’s harder to cut. Whenever I do get it harvested it’ll not dry out the same and it’s just going to lead to more drying costs,” he said.

While some farmers have been left counting the cost of the weekend’s weather, there has been some good news for the sector generally and this year’s harvest.

Early reports suggest that, although yields are back slightly on last year, they are still “reasonably good”, with winter barley said to be yielding around 3t to 3.5t/acre.

Gill Gallagher, chief executive of the Northern Ireland Grain Trade Association (NIGTA), also

confirmed that local feed com-pounders are continuing to support local growers as usual.

Uncertainty, however, remains around the global supply of grain despite a deal being brokered to allow the export of 20 million tonnes of grain from last year’s harvest in Ukraine, which has been stuck in storage as a result of Russia’s invasion.

Volatility in the marketplace, Ms Gallagher said, remains at “unprecedented levels”, leading to further uncertainty over prices.

“The deal brokered last Fri-day by the UN to allow the safe transportation of grain from Ukrainian ports has been somewhat overshadowed by the subsequent Russian missile strike on the port of Odessa on Saturday morning,” she said.

“While we remain cautiously optimistic that grain shipments will resume as planned, Russian actions demonstrate the fragility of the situation, and this is being reflected in the volatility of the marketplace which remains at unprecedented levels.”