Celebrating 60 Years of Agricultural Innovation – Oak Park Crops Research Centre
Saturday, 13 July 2024
This event showcased the evolution of crop production over the last 60 years, how Oak Park has contributed to those changes and how scientific knowledge has developed. Attendees witnessed first-hand how crop science has advanced and explored our extensive exhibit of farm machinery which was on display featuring tractors, implements and combine harvesters spanning six decades.
History of Oak Park
Download History of Oak Park booklet
Sixty years ago in 1964 Oak Park was officially opened as the National Crops Research Centre.
Since then, crop production has changed dramatically in Ireland and Oak Park has been at the forefront of many of those changes. Spring barley yields would have been less than 1 t/ha back then and now average over 7.5 t/ha. Agricultural machinery has also seen a remarkable transformation. In 1964, machines were beginning to replace work done by horses that, while revolutionary still required significant manual labour. Fast forward to today, and we have GPS self-steering tractors redefining efficiency and precision in farming.
Oak Park’s contributions don’t stop at machinery and improvements in crop yields. Our forage and potato breeding programmes at Teagasc have contributed to crop variety improvements with potatoes bred in Carlow now grown on every continent except Antarctica! Ireland’s favourite ‘Rooster’ potato variety was bred at Oak Park.
Research at Oak Park has contributed significantly to Irish crops being used in the Irish drinks industry for the production of Guinness, other beers and whiskey. This area of research has expanded recently with the establishment of the National Centre for Brewing and Distilling onsite.
