Irish researchers have made further progress in developing a next generation grass growth model. In the scientific paper published this month, the author Jack McDonnell, categorises the usefulness of medium range weather forecasts in Ireland in relation to grass growth models. The abstract of the paper entitled "Verification and bias correction of ECMWF forecasts for Irish weather stations to e...

"The Citizens’ Assembly has recommended there should be a tax on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from agriculture, among a number of other suggested measures to tackle climate change. The Assembly had been considering the topic, ‘How the State can make Ireland a leader in tackling climate change’. Its recommendations will now form the basis of a report for submission to the Houses of the Oireach...

Ireland, as well as parts of the UK, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands and Germany, all had delays sowing winter cereals due to the wet conditions. For a more in-depth analysis see the October MARS Bulletin. MARS, which monitor agricultural resources in Europe on behalf of the European Commission, publish free crop monitoring summaries every month. They can be accessed from the MARS website. ...

Congratulations to the winner of the AGMET Austin Bourke Bronze medal, Pooja Sharma. The Austin Bourke Bronze Medal is presented for a recent significant contribution to Irish agrometeorology, applied environmental meteorology, biometeorology or a related discipline. From the nominations received an award committee deemed Pooja’s work in the area “System modelling and life cycle assessment of dair...

The Inaugural Tom Keane AGMET Lecture - Tuesday 5th Sept 2017, Glasnevin, Dublin The Inaugural Tom Keane Lecture will be given by Met Éireann’s Head of Forecast Division, Gerald Fleming, with a talk entitled ‘A half-century of weather forecasting in Ireland’ This talk will consider how weather forecasting has evolved since the early days of AGMET – from charts that were plotted and analyse...

The Irish Joint Working Group on Applied Agricultural Meteorology (AGMET) is pleased to invite nominations for the award of The Austin Bourke Bronze Medal for a recent significant contribution to agrometeorology, applied environmental meteorology, biometeorology or a related discipline. Closing date for nominations is 12:00pm, Friday 4th August 2017. Download the application details. Eligibi...

' The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Meteorological Organization have signed a memorandum of understanding to deepen cooperation to respond to climate variability and climate change, which, according to the agreement, "represents an urgent and potentially irreversible threat to human societies, natural ecosystems and food security. ' * Source WMO news ' Through their ...

The European Commission MARS (Monitoring Agricultural ResourceS) programme publish regular bulletins commenting on observed and forecast crop growth. In the May 2017 publication it suggests that there is a positive outlook for winter crops across Ireland and the UK. “Winter crops are generally faring well, despite a pronounced rain deficit. Overall the yield outlook is positive, but more rai...

The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine advises farmers in relation to the predicted risk of infection in livestock based on the advice received from the Nematodirus Advisory Group. Source: DAFM - Press Release, April 2017 About the disease "Nematodirosis is a severe disease of lambs six to twelve weeks of age, which become infected through ingesting large numbers of infective ...

This May Met Éireann will be launching its ‘MÉRA’ climate reanalysis dataset. This 35 year meteorological gridded dataset will have many potential applications within the Irish Agrometeorology community "Climate reanalysis is a systematic approach used to produce meteorological datasets for climate monitoring and research. They are created using a fixed version of a forecast model and a data...