The challenges of 2016 are now largely behind us and a new set begin for 2017. The resilience of growers is tremendous and many of the horror stories of 2016 are now buried beneath a new beginning. Winter cereals area may even be up slightly as growers capitalise on exceptional ground conditions for this time of year.
Nowhere is this reliance more obvious than in the northwest. Last week, I was at Teagasc events in Donegal and it was terrific to see such a great crowd given the hardship experienced.
As well as Donegal, farmers also suffered from extreme wet in Galway, Mayo and Roscommon, as well as Derry, Antrim and Down. Harvesting was also badly hampered in parts of south Wexford and down into east and west Cork but, while losses were severe, trafficability was less of an issue.
The situation in Donegal last week was exactly as described by Liam Robb in last week’s Irish Farmers Journal. There were a lot of winter crops planted and emerged and looking well. A few crops had visible patches of volunteers present, probably a legacy of the amount of losses from the recent bad harvest conditions.
However, the legacy of the poor harvest conditions has not been totally camouflaged. Many fields still in stubble were heavily tracked by combines and trailers and indeed many of these tracks were full of water. I hope that inspectors will understand the challenges faced by farmers there if these stubbles fail to green up to provide the necessary green cover.
Knowledge transfer
As well as attending the evening seminar, I took the opportunity to attend a field walk the following morning. This group is to be part of Martin McCullough’s knowledge transfer group and it was interesting to see the dynamics of how they work. Both Shay Phelan and Martin McCullough of Teagasc explained the importance of measuring and recording many more of the things we do on farms and especially in our crops.
The initial conversation in a crop of winter barley focused on seed rates, seed numbers and ear counts. Seed rate is really about achieving 1,000 to 1,100 ears per square metre at harvest in two-row varieties and this governs the initial plant population requirement and seeding rate.
There is a logical sequence to how recommended seed rates are established and they relate to the structure of the crop at harvest. If you have 350 established plants with two strong surviving tillers each (plus the main stem), you end up with 350 x 3 or 1,050 ears per square metre. Naturally fertile fields may deliver more tillers per plant and so may have a lower plant count requirement. However, having a lot of this type of measurement will help to clarify such findings and advice for the future.
It is also possible that specific varieties may have a different natural propensity to either produce more tillers or to have better tiller survival characteristics. These are also characteristics which could alter target plant population and seeding rate for a specific variety. Such practical information can come from the continuous assembly of this type of farm measurement of plant and ear counts, provided it is done in sufficient numbers.
Taking plant counts
Shay Phelan talked about taking plant counts. There are many ways that this can be done – using a square, a circle or even a straight line measurement. Where you are using a square or a circle, remember that it is the inside measurement that provides the area to count. If that is a 25cm x 25cm square, it will give you one-sixteenth of a square metre. If it is 50cm x 50cm, that gives the count in one quarter of a square metre. Multiply the result in the smaller square by 16 or the bigger square by four to get your plant count per square metre.
Shay tends to use a circle because it suits both plant counts and ear counts and I agree with that. Again, circles can be made to any size, including a full square metre, but that takes a lot of counting. It’s better to have a smaller circle replicated more often to get a better picture of a full field.
A circle can be any size and Shay said that a 0.2m2 area tends to be the most workable. In terms of inside circle area, this equates to a radius of 25.25cm, a diameter of 50.5cm or a circumference of 158.5cm. But if you are making your circle out of, say, something thick such as plastic water pipe, these numbers need to be higher to ensure that the internal area is correct. If you use a 0.2m2 circle, multiply the plant count by five to get the square metre count.
If you prefer a bigger circle, a 0.5m2 can be made with a radius of 39.9cm.
In uneven plant populations, it can be better to try to count on a linear row basis. If your drill row-width is 11.5cm, 8.69m of row will give a square metre. Alternatively, count 0.869m of a row and multiply it by 10, or a double row to get 1.738m (count the rows on either side of the 0.869m measure) and multiply it by five to get the plant count per square metre.
Whatever technique you use, the benefit is in knowing the count. Counts should be completed before tillering so that individual plants can be more easily identified. If plant counts are lower than desirable, specific action may be needed in spring.
For winter barley in particular, plant count is an essential bit of information to help target seeding rate for optimum yield.Seed rate in barley is about having over 1,000 ears per square metre in two-row varieties at harvest.Increased measurement of many different aspects of crop production within the knowledge transfer scheme must be seen as potentially beneficial to growers in the longer term.
The challenges of 2016 are now largely behind us and a new set begin for 2017. The resilience of growers is tremendous and many of the horror stories of 2016 are now buried beneath a new beginning. Winter cereals area may even be up slightly as growers capitalise on exceptional ground conditions for this time of year.
Nowhere is this reliance more obvious than in the northwest. Last week, I was at Teagasc events in Donegal and it was terrific to see such a great crowd given the hardship experienced.
As well as Donegal, farmers also suffered from extreme wet in Galway, Mayo and Roscommon, as well as Derry, Antrim and Down. Harvesting was also badly hampered in parts of south Wexford and down into east and west Cork but, while losses were severe, trafficability was less of an issue.
The situation in Donegal last week was exactly as described by Liam Robb in last week’s Irish Farmers Journal. There were a lot of winter crops planted and emerged and looking well. A few crops had visible patches of volunteers present, probably a legacy of the amount of losses from the recent bad harvest conditions.
However, the legacy of the poor harvest conditions has not been totally camouflaged. Many fields still in stubble were heavily tracked by combines and trailers and indeed many of these tracks were full of water. I hope that inspectors will understand the challenges faced by farmers there if these stubbles fail to green up to provide the necessary green cover.
Knowledge transfer
As well as attending the evening seminar, I took the opportunity to attend a field walk the following morning. This group is to be part of Martin McCullough’s knowledge transfer group and it was interesting to see the dynamics of how they work. Both Shay Phelan and Martin McCullough of Teagasc explained the importance of measuring and recording many more of the things we do on farms and especially in our crops.
The initial conversation in a crop of winter barley focused on seed rates, seed numbers and ear counts. Seed rate is really about achieving 1,000 to 1,100 ears per square metre at harvest in two-row varieties and this governs the initial plant population requirement and seeding rate.
There is a logical sequence to how recommended seed rates are established and they relate to the structure of the crop at harvest. If you have 350 established plants with two strong surviving tillers each (plus the main stem), you end up with 350 x 3 or 1,050 ears per square metre. Naturally fertile fields may deliver more tillers per plant and so may have a lower plant count requirement. However, having a lot of this type of measurement will help to clarify such findings and advice for the future.
It is also possible that specific varieties may have a different natural propensity to either produce more tillers or to have better tiller survival characteristics. These are also characteristics which could alter target plant population and seeding rate for a specific variety. Such practical information can come from the continuous assembly of this type of farm measurement of plant and ear counts, provided it is done in sufficient numbers.
Taking plant counts
Shay Phelan talked about taking plant counts. There are many ways that this can be done – using a square, a circle or even a straight line measurement. Where you are using a square or a circle, remember that it is the inside measurement that provides the area to count. If that is a 25cm x 25cm square, it will give you one-sixteenth of a square metre. If it is 50cm x 50cm, that gives the count in one quarter of a square metre. Multiply the result in the smaller square by 16 or the bigger square by four to get your plant count per square metre.
Shay tends to use a circle because it suits both plant counts and ear counts and I agree with that. Again, circles can be made to any size, including a full square metre, but that takes a lot of counting. It’s better to have a smaller circle replicated more often to get a better picture of a full field.
A circle can be any size and Shay said that a 0.2m2 area tends to be the most workable. In terms of inside circle area, this equates to a radius of 25.25cm, a diameter of 50.5cm or a circumference of 158.5cm. But if you are making your circle out of, say, something thick such as plastic water pipe, these numbers need to be higher to ensure that the internal area is correct. If you use a 0.2m2 circle, multiply the plant count by five to get the square metre count.
If you prefer a bigger circle, a 0.5m2 can be made with a radius of 39.9cm.
In uneven plant populations, it can be better to try to count on a linear row basis. If your drill row-width is 11.5cm, 8.69m of row will give a square metre. Alternatively, count 0.869m of a row and multiply it by 10, or a double row to get 1.738m (count the rows on either side of the 0.869m measure) and multiply it by five to get the plant count per square metre.
Whatever technique you use, the benefit is in knowing the count. Counts should be completed before tillering so that individual plants can be more easily identified. If plant counts are lower than desirable, specific action may be needed in spring.
For winter barley in particular, plant count is an essential bit of information to help target seeding rate for optimum yield.Seed rate in barley is about having over 1,000 ears per square metre in two-row varieties at harvest.Increased measurement of many different aspects of crop production within the knowledge transfer scheme must be seen as potentially beneficial to growers in the longer term. 
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