John O’Donnell is a tillage farmer on the banks of the River Suir, near Clonmel, Co Tipperary. The main crop on the farm is barley, which is ideally suited to the fine loam soil type in the area. Crops grown include maize, spring beans, spring barley and winter barley. All crops are grown on contract for Brett Brothers in Callan, except for the maize which is grown for local dairy farmers.
The main rotation on the farm was maize or winter oilseed rape, followed by two crops of winter barley or spring barley. In 2016, John replaced the oilseed rape with spring beans in the rotation due to the possibility of a more favourable margin. Beans and maize play a big part in the crop rotation on the farm as their use ensures that seed crops are grown on clean ground following a break crop. This rotation also helps machinery use efficiency by spreading out the harvest and sowing periods.
The control of ongoing challenges, such as sterile brome and wild oats, is helped by the crop mix and the different herbicides associated with growing maize and beans/OSR. This practice will also help to prevent or slow the development of herbicide resistance.
John believes that prevention is better than cure and he engages in regular hand-roguing. The use of certified seed plays an important role on the farm and John feels it is essential that research continues to develop new improved crop varieties suitable for this country.
Conventional
In 2014, John changed from a conventional plough-based system to minimum tillage cultivation. The major objectives were to reduce crop establishment costs and to improve soil structure on the farm.
He currently uses one pass of a 3m Tulip Multidisc Vario cultivator. This has five subsoiler legs, two rows of discs and a packer roller to prepare a stale seedbed. The seedbed is sprayed off with glyphosate prior to drilling, which is done with a 4m Weaving tine drill.
Compost and slurry are applied annually to help add organic matter to the soil.
John has noticed that the soil structure has improved, especially on the headlands, and ground is easier to work. It will take a number of years to see the long term benefits of this change but there has been a dramatic increase in the number of earthworms in the soil.
John tries to add as much value as possible to his crops by growing contract beans and certified seed. This year he had 13ha of winter barley seed and 20ha of spring barley seed, which is grown for Brett Brothers.
Uses
John sees the use of certified seed as being very important, especially when growing crops under contract as it guarantees weed free and variety-pure seed. John sees the certified seed system as a useful way to introduce new crop varieties and utilise the best crop genetics to suit different fields and end user markets.
Crop varieties are selected based on grain quality, disease resistance and yield. Having grown certified seed for the past 30 years John is very aware of the level of detail involved in its production and the high standards enforced by the Department of Agriculture by regular crop inspection.
He has confidence in Irish certified seed to continuously deliver good establishment and vigorous crops. And from the effort required in growing the crop he is confident that Irish certified seed is weed free to provide better returns to the grower.
To read the full Certified Seed Focus Supplement, click here.