Vivion Turbitt

Wexford

Vivion began his harvest this week with his Craft winter malting barley. The crop was harvested at 18% moisture content, with a specific weight of 60KPH. Protein levels came in at 10.4% while yields ranged from 3.3t/ac to 4t/ac. Around 10% of the field was badly hit by BYDV. Straw yields appear to be good, but it is still slightly green.

Both his six- and two-row winter feed barley crops are around seven days from harvest. Vivion is happy with the potential of these crops, as the grains look very plump and they were not as badly affected by the virus. The straw appears to be ripening at the same pace as the grain in his feed crops.

Winter oats

His winter oats still need a few days of sunshine to fully ripen them: “You’ll never fully know if oats are ripe until you put the combine through it” Vivion remarked. He expects that harvest to commence next week. His winter wheat is also looking very well and he expects the crop to be ripe around 15 August.

Crops have been ripening well, helped along by the light showers, mist, dew and bright drying sunshine. Around 26mm of rain has fallen on Vivion’s farm since talking to him last.

His spring barley remains incredibly clean and Vivion thinks there’s huge potential in these crops this year. The crop has established well and suffered no real setbacks in his area. He applied Medax Max to the crop earlier in the year and is thankful he did, considering the height of crops on any spots that he missed. The crop is beginning to turn.

There is plenty of moisture in his potato crops, but the rain this week will still be welcome. Both later and earlier planted potatoes are developing very well. Due to the good weather, blight pressure has been low. Ten days ago he applied Zorvec (0.15l/ha) and Cuzate (1.5kg/ha) along with slug pellets. The crop is due another blight spray this week.

Chris Bourns

Eyrecourt, Co Galway

“It’s been a good year for Galway, and a much better one for growing” remarked Chris, as he explains that all of his crops appear to have great potential.

His winter barley was sprayed off last week, which puts the crop at risk when the weather breaks this week. He’ll start harvesting it as soon as the weather allows. In a number of his winter barley fields he has cleavers and wild oats appearing. The crops got an autumn herbicide, but it appears that there was a late flush of weeds in spring.

With the exception of some suspected

BYDV, his winter wheat crops are largely looking very good, and that harvest is still a strong month away he explains.

Chris' Doubleshot spring wheat will be whole cropped in August to feed to his bulls later in the year.

Spring crops

His spring barley crops, which had been looking backwards, are now looking good. But those crops which looked strong are now at real risk of lodging. These crops followed fodder beet.

It’s been a low disease pressure year so far for his spring barley, on account of the low rainfall. Around 25mm has fallen on Chris’s farm since speaking with him last.

His spring wheat received its head spray last week, which consisted of Bravo (1l/ha) and Corbel (0.4l/ha). The crop still has some mildew present. The crop is des-tined for whole cropping in a month’s time which will be done by 2018 From the Tramline farmer John Daly. Last week, he noticed a high amount of pollen in the air at the time of spraying the crop.

His fodder and sugar beet crops have responded very well to the heat and sunshine. He applied the fungicide Escolta (0.3l/ha) as well as Boron and Manganese. He will apply a second application in 21 days on crops which will be harvested later.

He has noticed that his sugar beet was able to establish and develop quicker in the drier conditions earlier in the season.

His John Deere 9660 combine is now fully serviced and ready for harvest. He plans on having his sheds cleaned out by the end of this week.

Andrew Bergin

Athy, Co Kildare

Things are much different on Andrew’s farm this year. His winter barley is still around a week away from harvest and he is somewhat surprised with the level of greenness that’s still in the crop. Most of the grains are plump, but he noticed a number of small grains on a few of the heads. He questions whether this could be as a result of BYDV, or possibly late Ramularia. These grains will most likely be blown out the back of the combine at harvest time.

A mixture of light showers and warm sunshine over the past couple of weeks has really helped bring his Husky oats forward, and they will most likely be cut before his winter barley. The straw is also ripening quickly. “There looks to be good potential in oats, but the crop is always a hard one to judge,” he explained.

He expects the first of his winter wheat to be cut early in August. The crop is still holding up well, and the heads appear to be free of fusarium so far. It has been a good growing year for wheat on his farm.

The average number of peas per pod is five. Pictured is one of Andrew's better pods containing 8 peas.

His spring peas are still not ready to harvest and received their final spray of Signum (600g/ha), as well as trace elements, around three weeks ago. Andrew explains that while there are plenty of pods present, they aren’t very big. “With four to five peas per pod, you wouldn’t mind an extra pea per pod,” he remarked.

He expects the earliest of his spring malting barley crops to be ripe by the first week in August. He’s generally happy with these crops which, despite the dry year, haven’t shown any signs of moisture stress.

Cover crops

Andrew is in the process of securing his cover crop seed for the upcoming season. This year he plans on sowing two mixes. His summer mix, which will be planted before a winter crop, will consist of mustard, tillage radish, buckwheat and phacelia.

His over-winter mix will consist of tillage radish, buckwheat and phacelia, but he will substitute clover and linseed for the mustard.

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