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The effects of the late spring are being felt on tillage farms around the country and this week’s growers are no different. Changing crop rotations, altering fertiliser strategies and making cropping decisions based on greening obligations are just a number of the challenges highlighted. Stephen Robb reports.
Ballycarney, Co Wexford
After weeks of rain, the usually free-draining Clonroche soil has become saturated and difficult to travel on. Spring ground work is well behind when compared with normal years and the work load continues to mount.
Despite this, Julian has managed to complete 80% of ploughing by seizing any opportunities he could since December.
He runs Kverneland five-furrow and four-furrow vari-width ploughs with slatted boards.
No winter crops were planted last year because of the poor autumn. This is the first year since 2013 that Julian has no winter cereals planted and he admits that this is unfortunate given the way the spring has unfolded.
No crops have been planted this year yet and Julian has made the decision to abandon planting spring beans. He had ordered Lynx bean seed for 25ha but plans to grow Doubleshot spring wheat instead following a break crop. However, as the season progresses, this is subject to change.
Julian also plans to sow husky spring oats at 160kg/ha which he will plant up to the middle of April. Spring barley will be the last crop sown as conditions are more important than planting date. His Planet spring malting barley seed will be sown at 180-185kg/ha as will his Gangway seed barley.
This late season is also bringing some concerns. “Beans are an important break crop and removing them will have a knock-on effect for my rotation, especially on seed crops.”
Furthermore, achieving distilling specification on malting contracts could prove difficult as planting early and availing of a long growing season is important for low protein grain production, explains Julian.
Julian’s fertiliser strategy for spring crops this year consists of combine drilling 370-430kg/ha of 10:8:25+S using his 4m Vaderstad Spirit trailed drill. He also spread 250kg/ha of 15:10:10 on grassland in mid-March but there has been virtually no grass growth since.
“If they give a derogation I will sow one crop, probably barley, but if we don’t get it I may have to consider fallow as a last resort. This is really undesirable and there won’t be any straw from this.”
Portlaoise, Co Laois
With over 50mm of rain since 1 April, spring field work is equally behind in Laois. The weather is testing ground conditions and patience, explains Eugene, who has no spring crops sown.
His Carneval winter barley received 450kg/ha of 12:8:20+S+Mn+Zn on 20 March but the crops were initially slow to respond. However, they have since improved significantly and received their top dressing of 325kg/ha of 29:0:14+S last Friday. Last autumn the crops received 2l/ha of Tower herbicide and remain clean from weeds.
Some of the ground which Julian has ploughed throughout the winter is well weathered and is just beginning to dry out.
At GS30, Eugene estimates winter crops are three weeks behind when compared to this time last year. They will soon receive an application of Zephyr (0.75l/ha) as well as Mancozin (0.85l/ha) in their T1 spray. Depending on temperatures, he will also apply CCC (0.85l/ha) or Medax Max (0.33l/ha).
Most of his phacelia and vetch cover crop mixes were burned off with glyphosate (2l/ha) in mid-February. An application of either of farmyard manure (6-7t/ac) or slurry (1,000 gallons/ac) will be applied over the coming days on the ground planned for oilseed rape. Eugene is around 60% complete with his ploughing and runs a five-furrow Kverneland vari-width plough with a drag and drop press.
His top priory is to drill distilling barley followed by his brewing crop: “I am concerned that the season is getting late and there could be problems making the distilling specification.” As a result, he plans to alter his distilling barley nitrogen strategy and possibly reduce rates by up to 25kg/ha. His Planet barley seed will be sown at 180kg/ha as soon as conditions allow followed by Olympus seed barley sown at 140kg/ha. Spring oilseed rape will be the last crop sown on Eugene’s farm. Around 370kg/ha of 12:8:20+S+Mn+Zn will be broadcast on the surface before drilling with his 3m mounted Lemken Solitaire 9 drill. An additional 125kg/ha of 27% N may be applied to the seedbed, with the expectation of the distilling ground. This will be followed up with 125kg/ha of 29:0:14 when the tramlines are visible.
“It’s the first time we don’t have spring barley sown in March but we’re hoping that once crops are established they’ll move forward quicker and compensate.”
Ballinasloe, Co Galway
Similar to the rest of the country, the last number of weeks can only be described as wet and cold in the west. After a brief period of relief three weeks ago, rain has returned and once again rendered ground conditions virtually unworkable.
Due to the challenging autumn, there were no winter crops sown on John’s farm. This had a knock-on effect on his three-crop rule obligations.
However, the equally challenging spring has put greater pressure on him to meet these cropping requirements.
Ploughing is well behind where it needs to be for this time of year, explains John. He’s currently only around 15-20% complete, much of which was done three weeks ago. His four-furrow ES85 Kverneland vari-width plough will be doing double shifts, up to 20 hours a day when the weather allows in order to get through the backlog of work. Some of the ground has already received 3,000 gallon/ac of slurry but there may be more applied to other stubble ground later in the week.
John’s spring cropping plan consists of spring barley and oats. His varieties of choice include Irina spring barley, as it performed well last year, and Gangway, which will be sown on the farm for the first time. Both varieties will be sown at 190kg/ha.
John plans to sow Husky oats at 250kg/ha but admits that he is only sowing spring oats in order to meet his three-crop rule requirements.
An application of 10:10:20 (155kg/ha) will be applied just before sowing. John will apply straight nitrogen to bring the total N balance of the crops up to 125-155kg/ha.
John can cover a lot of ground when conditions are right using his two Kverneland 3m mounted i-drill and i-drill PRO which will both be needed considering how late the season is, explains John: “We finished sowing last year around 16 April this year we’ll be lucky to have started at this time.
“There’s no point in putting crops in the ground now unless they’re going in in excellent conditions, there cannot be any set-backs now if we are to get a decent yield”.
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