Harvest is well and truly underway across the country. Last week we visited John Culbert on his farm just outside of Athy. The roads were alive around the banks of the Grand Canal and the river Barrow that day with winter barley and winter oats being harvested and lorries, tractors and trailers all drawing grain.

Winter barley was the order of the day for John. His Orcade winter barley was an impressive crop and the weighbridge docket that John’s nephew Andrew delivered back from the merchant proved that with a bushel of 71 (KPH) at a moisture content of 13.8%.

There were a nice few lodged patches in the crop, a sign it was doing well. On Monday, John was delighted and sent the printout of the loads from that field.

The docket showed that the crop that looked so well in the field had proved itself on the weighbridge.

It surpassed expectations averaging 4.2t/ac at moisture contents of 13-14%. That equates to a yield of over 4.5t/ac at a moisture content of 20%.

It’s an outstanding yield this season. The crop received just 121 units/ac of nitrogen in the form of SulCAN and a decision was made to close the gate on the fertiliser spreader after this. No artificial phosphorus or potassium fertiliser was applied.

Three fungicides were applied and the crop was clean. John has no grass weed issues on the farm, apart from a bit of brome in the ditches, which he tries to keep under control with spray and physically removing the grass.

John, like any farmer, is aiming for high yields on his crops and he is getting them by good practice of a strong rotation, winter wheat after break crops and using his farmyard manure from the cattle enterprise to keep his soil in good working order.

Each field gets about 12t/ac of cattle dung in a five-year period. His farmyard manure is all going out on the tillage ground. He also uses chicken litter in some fields. He sells straw to the same poultry farmer.

All of the oilseed rape and bean stalks are chopped as well. As John says: “There’s a nice bit going back into the ground, which is a huge help.”

That’s what’s contributing to growing good crops. He uses a lot of the winter wheat straw himself for bedding and feeding cattle, sells some and this year he will chop 25ac.

He says it can be hard enough to find buyers at a reasonable price. He has plenty of sale for his winter barley straw, mostly to a poultry farmer.

Soil pH is not an issue in that part of the World with pH levels over 7 in the main, so lime is not needed. Phosphorus and potassium levels are mostly at index 3 for P and K on the farm.

Yields

His winter barley yields generally come in at around 4t/ac, while winter wheat is up at 5t/ac. He doesn’t get these figures every year, but that’s clearly the aim and crops come in either side of that in general.

I asked John does he like growing oilseed rape and his response was that it’s a good-paying crop, it spreads the workload and he likes the good crop of winter wheat it brings in the following year.

His rotation is oilseed rape, followed by winter wheat, followed by beans, winter wheat and winter barley.

Winter wheat takes up about 40% of the area, with the remaining three crops divided fairly equally on the rest of the land.

Grass comes in and out of the rotation as well from the cattle enterprise on the farm.

The second field of winter barley he has to cut was in the second year out of grass and had a nice bit lodged, but the hot weather meant, he wasn’t going to be waiting for a dry day to cut the crop thankfully and with a fresh combine it was not going to be an issue. The auto steer was clearly a big advantage in the field as well.

His oilseed rape is averaging 2t/ac each year though, so there’s nothing to complain about there. 1.8t/ac was his worst yield in the past 10 years and that was in the drought of 2018.

Eddie Young is John’s agronomist and John makes sure to follow his advice to the letter applying fertiliser and fungicides at the right time.

John says they work well together and this is a big part of producing good crops.

Planting

John is in a minimum tillage system. He has a Kuhn Performer, which is a combined disc and tine cultivator. His seed drill is a Kuhn Espro.

As you can see from the pictures Massey Ferguson is the preferred machinery choice on the farm and a 7s and 5S do the lifting. He keeps his machinery in good order with EV Condell’s looking after the servicing and having everything ready to go when it is needed.

The beans were direct drilled this year by a contractor using a Horsch drill. John direct drills the winter wheat on occasion as well after beans with the same contractor.

The beans were planted on the 1 April, so John is expecting a late harvest, but is going to go with his agronomist’s advice and put on the second fungicide.

In general, on the farm the winter wheat is planted before the winter barley and the winter barley is then planted around mid-October.

John planted a barley yellow dwarf virus (BYDV) tolerant variety (Orcade) and the delayed sowing helps to further reduce BYDV risk and reduces grass weed risk as well.

With the harvest now well underway and spring crops coming in fast we wish John and all tillage farmers across the country a safe and happy harvest.

You can see a video of John below.