Touch of spring: March is remaining true to tradition – a month of many weathers. It has gone from snow to a touch of spring within hours in places but land is still mainly wet. But, as always, a few fine days can make a massive difference and the wind is to come from the east next week. There is still a lot of ploughing to be done but try have conditions good for this. The bigger question is to plant or not?

Planting: Conditions can turn quite quickly so be prepared, especially if you have some lighter ground. Spring wheat and beans are the priority, followed by spring oats. For those with malting barley, early is good but conditions are even more important. You might take some changes on seedbed condition for wheat, oats or beans but don’t compromise good conditions when planting spring barley.

The first big question is to plant or not, or what not to plant? With price under such pressure growing any acre is questionable but planting poor acres that won’t yield is foolhardy. Fallow is an option for crop diversification and you can have up to 100% fallow, which means no problem with the two-or three-crop requirement or with EFA. Prospects may improve for high yield land but not poor yield land. You can have as much or as little fallow as you wish.

Plant beans by seed number – target around 35 seeds/m2. This will require 175-210kg/ha (11-13 st/ac) where seed is between 450g to 550g TGW. Get fertiliser into the seedbed at planting if possible. There is still time to get beans planted.

Aim to plant spring wheat at about 300-350 seeds/m2 or 150-180 kg/ha (10-12 st/ac) (assuming 45-50g TGW). Drill barley at 350-375 seeds/m2 – 155-170 kg/ha (10-12 st/ac) (45g seed). Target oats at about 350-400 seeds/m2 – 125-150 kg/ha for 35g seed (8-9 st/ac).

Combine drilling of fertiliser is preferable for low P and K Index soils but get it into the seedbed at worst. Consider using Wolftrax trace elements on the fertiliser where deficiencies are an annual problem.

Professional User: It seems that there are a number of people out there who have completed sprayer courses for the purpose of being registered as a Professional User (PU) of professional use pesticides. However, successful completion of the course itself is not an automatic entitlement to be a PU as this involves separate registration with the Department. Since 26 November last, people who apply pesticide must be registered as a PU.

You must have a sprayer training course completed to become a professional user but this alone is not sufficient to meet this legal requirement. Registration can be completed online at http://www.pcs.agriculture.gov.ie/sud/sudreg/ and choose the most appropriate link to register.

Successful registration will result in the operator being awarded a PU number and this even applies to knapsack application. You are not a PU until you receive a PU number so get this process underway as quickly as possible.