Ballyragget,
Co Kilkenny
With all the harvest gathered and the straw sold, baled and cleared it is officially the planting season once again for James. This had begun when James was last featured on 7 September as he had already planted both DK Extrovert and DK Expansion winter oilseed rape. This has now emerged and James reckons he has about 27/28 plants/m2 from the 32 seeds he planted.
“The crops are really growing well in the combination of heat and moisture. We had 56.1mm of rain since 7 September with over 25mm of that on the 22nd of the month. Despite the rain there are no slugs evident in the crops but I took the precaution of applying pellets around by the hedges”, James explains.
Just after drilling he applied a low rate of a generic Katamaran (Legion) to hold the initial weed flush and he has since applied Stratos Ultra at 1.25l/ha to target volunteers and brome. He had not achieved a good stale seedbed following the previous crop so volunteers were inevitable. He still expects to spray these crops with Kerb Flo in December/January.
James has not planted any winter cereal yet and does not plan to begin until later this week at the earliest. He had cultivated all stubbles post harvest and these have since been sprayed with a non-selective herbicide to leave them ready for planting.
“If weather permits I still have an amount of lime to apply ahead of planting. This is a very important input as it governs the effectiveness of all other nutrients in the soil. Not having soil pH correct is a bit like driving with the handbrake on”, James suggests.
His plan for drilling is to start with first wheats on the heavier land which could be troublesome with later planting. This could amount to about half the wheat area and then he intends to switch back to winter barley. When that is done he will again revert to wheat planting.
The wheat varieties he will plant are JB Diego, Costello and Graham, with Costello likely to be the first sown due to its apparent robustness. The hybrid six-row Belfry will be his only winter barley variety but the area of this crop is much lower than the wheat.
He intends to plant the early wheat at around 220 seeds/m2 and the barley between 170 and 200 seeds/m2.
Bushmills,
Co Antrim
The long drawn out harvest got wrapped up for Mark McCurdy on 15 September when he harvested the last of his spring barley. While there was some rain in the preceding days, land had dried out and he made the best of the good weather to get straw baled up and removed. Mark had 38.2mm of rain since 7 September and over 10mm of that fell last Thursday.
“There were no major losses evident in the last of the spring barley because these crops were later maturing. There were patches lodged but the few good days enabled us to get it lifted and the grain looked good in the trailer”, Mark explains.
Now the wheel has turned full circle as he is now well into planting his winter barley. He began drilling the variety California last week in good conditions but got rained off that Thursday with about 10 acres left to plant. He is now waiting for another opportunity to get this job finished.
Mark drilled most of his California winter barley last week until the weather broke.
The land where the barley is being sown is all high fertility, helped by the potatoes in the rotation. So he had no need for seedbed fertiliser and his pH levels are good also. If weather allows he will consider pre-emerge herbicide but this may not be possible before the plants come through.
When we last spoke to Mark he intended to begin burning off his maincrop potatoes about two weeks later. This did begin two week ago, using Reglone, and he included Curzate in some areas where blight was present. He finished burning off his maincrop on Wednesday of last week and he now hopes to begin lifting for storage in about a week, weather permitting.
While conditions were good for winter barley planting, Mark said that ground remains marginal in his heavier land where potato harvesting is ongoing. “While we must always worry about ground conditions here, we seem to have adequate tuber numbers and good tuber size and this helps enthusiasm to get these crops lifted. But we are never sure what the yield will be until the last trailer leaves the last field”, he concludes.
Athy,
Co Kildare
Baling and removal of the last of the straw happened since we last featured Andrew. All headlands were chopped as well as one awkward field of spring barley. Once fields were cleared, the jobs of planning cover crops and winter oilseed rape became urgent.
Most of the stubbles were planted with cover crops, but not all. The broken weather eventually left it just too late to expect a realistic benefit from a cover crop. While we normally associate cover crops with autumn planting ahead of spring crops, two of Andrew’s fields were sown with a summer cover mix of tillage radish, buckwheat, white mustard and phacelia on 6 August. This was actually sown between two seed oat crops but it looks weak compared to last year.
Snails have appeared as a new potential pest on Andrew's direct drilled winter oilseed rape.
The majority of the cover crop was sown to a similar winter cover mix which included tillage radish, phacelia, buckwheat and linseed. The rate of growth seems quite slow at the moment.
“I never had slugs on this farm until I moved to cover cropping and now I occasionally see huge number of eggs in the soil. However, I seldom get bad slug problems and see very few active slugs about. But I do see quite a number of small snails which only seem to be doing a small amount of damage”, Andrew explains.
Autumn planting is underway with the first ever winter oilseed rape crop planted. He planted the hybrid variety DK Expansion on 6 September in wheat stubble. He targeted 2.5 kg/ha but ended up at 3.2 kg/ha. The crop is now up and doing well. The heavy rain two weekends ago helped the crop which might have been a little thirsty at the time. Andrew had applied some chicken litter pellets to the crop to help drive autumn growth.
He now has winter wheat and oats to plant but he is not in a rush. “My intention, weather permitting, is to plant my winter wheat between 10-15 October. This is not a big acreage and it will all be sown to the variety Graham. We will then move to plant Husky oats, hopefully between 15-20 October”, Andrew explains.
Ballyragget,
Co Kilkenny
With all the harvest gathered and the straw sold, baled and cleared it is officially the planting season once again for James. This had begun when James was last featured on 7 September as he had already planted both DK Extrovert and DK Expansion winter oilseed rape. This has now emerged and James reckons he has about 27/28 plants/m2 from the 32 seeds he planted.
“The crops are really growing well in the combination of heat and moisture. We had 56.1mm of rain since 7 September with over 25mm of that on the 22nd of the month. Despite the rain there are no slugs evident in the crops but I took the precaution of applying pellets around by the hedges”, James explains.
Just after drilling he applied a low rate of a generic Katamaran (Legion) to hold the initial weed flush and he has since applied Stratos Ultra at 1.25l/ha to target volunteers and brome. He had not achieved a good stale seedbed following the previous crop so volunteers were inevitable. He still expects to spray these crops with Kerb Flo in December/January.
James has not planted any winter cereal yet and does not plan to begin until later this week at the earliest. He had cultivated all stubbles post harvest and these have since been sprayed with a non-selective herbicide to leave them ready for planting.
“If weather permits I still have an amount of lime to apply ahead of planting. This is a very important input as it governs the effectiveness of all other nutrients in the soil. Not having soil pH correct is a bit like driving with the handbrake on”, James suggests.
His plan for drilling is to start with first wheats on the heavier land which could be troublesome with later planting. This could amount to about half the wheat area and then he intends to switch back to winter barley. When that is done he will again revert to wheat planting.
The wheat varieties he will plant are JB Diego, Costello and Graham, with Costello likely to be the first sown due to its apparent robustness. The hybrid six-row Belfry will be his only winter barley variety but the area of this crop is much lower than the wheat.
He intends to plant the early wheat at around 220 seeds/m2 and the barley between 170 and 200 seeds/m2.
Bushmills,
Co Antrim
The long drawn out harvest got wrapped up for Mark McCurdy on 15 September when he harvested the last of his spring barley. While there was some rain in the preceding days, land had dried out and he made the best of the good weather to get straw baled up and removed. Mark had 38.2mm of rain since 7 September and over 10mm of that fell last Thursday.
“There were no major losses evident in the last of the spring barley because these crops were later maturing. There were patches lodged but the few good days enabled us to get it lifted and the grain looked good in the trailer”, Mark explains.
Now the wheel has turned full circle as he is now well into planting his winter barley. He began drilling the variety California last week in good conditions but got rained off that Thursday with about 10 acres left to plant. He is now waiting for another opportunity to get this job finished.
Mark drilled most of his California winter barley last week until the weather broke.
The land where the barley is being sown is all high fertility, helped by the potatoes in the rotation. So he had no need for seedbed fertiliser and his pH levels are good also. If weather allows he will consider pre-emerge herbicide but this may not be possible before the plants come through.
When we last spoke to Mark he intended to begin burning off his maincrop potatoes about two weeks later. This did begin two week ago, using Reglone, and he included Curzate in some areas where blight was present. He finished burning off his maincrop on Wednesday of last week and he now hopes to begin lifting for storage in about a week, weather permitting.
While conditions were good for winter barley planting, Mark said that ground remains marginal in his heavier land where potato harvesting is ongoing. “While we must always worry about ground conditions here, we seem to have adequate tuber numbers and good tuber size and this helps enthusiasm to get these crops lifted. But we are never sure what the yield will be until the last trailer leaves the last field”, he concludes.
Athy,
Co Kildare
Baling and removal of the last of the straw happened since we last featured Andrew. All headlands were chopped as well as one awkward field of spring barley. Once fields were cleared, the jobs of planning cover crops and winter oilseed rape became urgent.
Most of the stubbles were planted with cover crops, but not all. The broken weather eventually left it just too late to expect a realistic benefit from a cover crop. While we normally associate cover crops with autumn planting ahead of spring crops, two of Andrew’s fields were sown with a summer cover mix of tillage radish, buckwheat, white mustard and phacelia on 6 August. This was actually sown between two seed oat crops but it looks weak compared to last year.
Snails have appeared as a new potential pest on Andrew's direct drilled winter oilseed rape.
The majority of the cover crop was sown to a similar winter cover mix which included tillage radish, phacelia, buckwheat and linseed. The rate of growth seems quite slow at the moment.
“I never had slugs on this farm until I moved to cover cropping and now I occasionally see huge number of eggs in the soil. However, I seldom get bad slug problems and see very few active slugs about. But I do see quite a number of small snails which only seem to be doing a small amount of damage”, Andrew explains.
Autumn planting is underway with the first ever winter oilseed rape crop planted. He planted the hybrid variety DK Expansion on 6 September in wheat stubble. He targeted 2.5 kg/ha but ended up at 3.2 kg/ha. The crop is now up and doing well. The heavy rain two weekends ago helped the crop which might have been a little thirsty at the time. Andrew had applied some chicken litter pellets to the crop to help drive autumn growth.
He now has winter wheat and oats to plant but he is not in a rush. “My intention, weather permitting, is to plant my winter wheat between 10-15 October. This is not a big acreage and it will all be sown to the variety Graham. We will then move to plant Husky oats, hopefully between 15-20 October”, Andrew explains.
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