Winter barley production in Ireland continues to grow, with the latest figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) showing that production was up 153,000t on 2014 levels.
Spring barley production was down 145,000t to 1.02m tonnes, the figures show.
Overall, production of the three main cereals (wheat, oats and barley) increased by 36,000t to 2.634m tonnes in 2015.
CSO figures show that the yield increased by 6.4%, while the area sown decreased by 4.7%.
Winter wheat production fell to 610,000t on 2014 as spring wheat production was up by 61.3% to 86,000t. The increase in spring wheat production can be attributed to an increase in the area sown of 3,600ha.
Looking at beans and peas production, it increased by 241.8% from 20,000t in 2014 to 69,000t in 2015.
The area sown increased by 7,100ha to 10,700ha and beans accounted for 92.5% of the total area in 2015.
The CSO attributes the large increase in the area under beans to the impact of the EU Protein Crop Subsidy and greening requirements under CAP.
Meanwhile, oats production increased by 32.1% (48,000t); the area sown increased by 4,800ha (25.9%) and the yield increased by 4.9%.
Looking at potatoes and the yield increased by 4.3% to 42.3t per hectare in 2015.
The area sown decreased by 9.9% which resulted in a drop in production of 23,000t (6%) to 360,000t.
Oilseed rape production was up by 16.7% (6,000t). The area sown decreased by 500ha (5.6%), while the yield increased by 23.6%.
