May 13, 2021, 5:00 pm The highly invasive blackgrass weed was found in a commercial wildflower mixture that was grown in an experimental plot in Carlow. If this weed is widespread in mixtures which were planted on farms, schools, gardens, and amenity areas across the country, it poses a huge risk of contamination to tillage crops and the Irish tillage industry. As part of the Enable Conservation Tillage (ECT) project, Teagasc completed a 10-year macroeconomic analysis on the cost of blackgrass control in winter wheat and winter barley in Ireland. This analysis estimated that, even with good levels of control achieved in nine of the 10 years, blackgrass would still cost Irish tillage farmers €30 million in lost winter wheat output. In addition, €13.5 million worth of winter barley production would be lost.