Drainage discussion: At the Virginia Show conference yesterday (Wednesday), there was a very good discussion on soil fertility and drainage which many farmers are considering before quota is removed post 2015. James O’Loughlin from Teagasc outlined that all drainage jobs will cost between €5,000 to €7,000 per hectare, and his point was that really there is no cheap drainage job, so you must ensure you are doing the right job.

This charge includes a reseeding charge per hectare, which is almost always necessary following a large drainage job. James made the point that you need to dig a test hole before starting any drainage job, but farmers argued that there is no expertise in parts of the country to describe what you see when the test hole is dug. To a certain degree, the farmers are right. The level of knowledge in the country had drained away over the last number of years as the level of drainage happening on farms declined. Every test hole should be at least two metres deep, so you need a 13-tonne digger at least to make it easy digging.

Remember the objective of the test hole is to: (1) see the different soil layers; (2) identify what soil layers will transfer water (if any) – these are the layers with gravel or stone that you need to link into if you want to move water away; (3) see the transfer rate of water into the hole and what layer it is coming from – this may take time as the water won’t instantly come into the hole, so make sure you leave the hole open for a few hours.

If you don’t know what you are looking at or have no local expertise, then make sure you take photos and measurements and these can be sent to the Teagasc experts who are doing this work every day. Teagasc and private consultants are training more specialists and upskilling in this area but it will take time before there is a national spread of expertise.

Pipes: When questioned on whether to use pipe or not in land drains, he said yes you should use pipe, and especially if the length of the drain is 30 metres or more. He said 80mm pipe is big enough for 100-metre-long drains and overall the cost of the pipe is small relative to the money you are spending so if you want to move water away quickly then you should use a pipe.

Conacre: Also at the conference Austin Finn, land mobility manager, described the service he offers to farmers that want to get involved or know more about share farming. Austin made the point that working on Conacre system (land rental for 11 months) is not really a viable business option because any livestock system simply cannot afford to invest in soil fertility. He suggested a lot of farms both in the south and north of Ireland are based on conacre letting and these are very vulnerable and the farmers should do what they can to change this system. It is very easy to say and a lot more difficult to change, but maybe we should ask ourselves this week is there anything we can do to get a more long-term lease now that the CAP reform is more clear, and both parties know where they stand.