North Wexford has been subject to sudden outbursts of intense rainfall over the last week, resulting in flash flooding in areas.

This has wiped out freshly-sown crops and has made cutting silage very difficult.

“Floods are extremely localised. The rain is short, but vicious when it falls. It’s monsoon weather we are experiencing," Wexford Irish Farmers' Assocation (IFA) chair Jer O'Mahony told the Irish Farmers Journal.

With regards to damage, Jer said that “there seems to be a bit of damage where gripes and streams overflowed on freshly-sown crops and took the topsoil with it. In the Ballycarney area, a field of potatoes nearly washed across the road.”

Although the floods are localised, John Murphy of the IFA said that “there are crops badly affected, with recent reseeds, barley and wheat crops destroyed. You can see crops going yellow in wet places. It’s as wet as it has been all spring.”

In his area, there was 10mm of rain on Monday night and 30mm the night before. With a lot of crops still to go into the ground, he believes that the delayed planting will result in a loss of yield and push the harvest out into September.

Silage

MJ Scallan of the IFA dairy committee said that from a dairy perspective, the persistent rain is creating “huge problems”, with silage being the main one.

He said that there are an “awful lot of people queuing (to get it done) and this will put huge pressure on contractors if the weather breaks”.

“We are coming into June now and I’d say only around 10% of silage is done. Ground conditions are a huge thing. Travelling on land is extremely challenging to say the least.”

He also acknowledged that quality will be deteriorating as time goes on.

Conception rates

With breeding season well under way, another major concern of his is the effect of the wet weather on the stress levels of cows, which could negatively affect conception rates.

Scallan noted that a lot of late tillage ground is going into maize.

“Farmers still have barley to sow and there are huge questions around whether it is worth sowing or not at this stage.”

The IFA is encouraging anyone feeling the pressure to seek help and support.