There were simple messages about how to approach disease control, about the importance of phosphate in the seedbed for spring crops and about the additional costs associated with travel to land away from the farmyard.
This week I report on some of the topics from the tillage conference, with more next week.
Base fertilizer responses
Phosphorous is very important to help provide a good start to establishing crops, especially spring crops. Mark Plunkett of Teagasc reminded us that soil P levels, as shown in the soil test results generated through Teagasc, have fallen in recent years. The proportion of soils at Index 3 and 4 is decreasing while the numbers at Index 1 and 2 are increasing. On potash, the proportion of samples at Index 1 and Index 4 is decreasing, which represents improving soil fertility management on tillage farms, especially in recent years.
Mark showed how balanced nutrition, based on nutrient off-takes, could be seen in soil fertility trends on some of the BETTER tillage farms in recent years. Crop fertilization must be based on the crop grown and the total nutrient removed in yield and straw. He emphasised the importance of accurate sampling to monitor progress and referred to the fact that future sampling on these farms would be done on a reference area rather than the whole field. This will more accurately monitor fertility balance on specific field areas.
The importance of balanced fertility was also emphasised, with pH being critical for nutrient availability in soils. Some of the examples he used showed the importance of P and K balance in the applied fertilizer. Mark emphasised the importance of “buying what you need, not what you are being sold”. Fertilizers with the wrong P and K balance can quickly push either element out of balance, thus altering soil fertility over time.
Good soil fertility has more impact for higher yield potential than increased fertilizer rates and so the objective must always be to push fertility towards Index 3. Mark emphasised that soil phosphate level is slow to change and so it takes longer for soil levels to drop if inadequate P is applied. However, for the same reason, it is also more difficult to raise soil P level.
Combine drilling
Because phosphorous drives plant rooting and tillering, the effects of early application and placement can impact on plant growth. This was easily seen in the BETTER farm plots in 2012 and we published pictures which clearly showed the benefit of combine drilling last spring. Cold and dryness adversely affect P availability in soil and these conditions prevailed in the early part of last spring.
However, Mark emphasised that the broadcast treatments were applied immediately after drilling and then ring rolled, giving them much greater chance of benefit because the fertilizer was pushed closer to the seed to begin with. But, in the absence of rain, fertilizer (especially P and K) placed on top of the ground will be much less available to the actively growing plants below.
All the different combine drilled treatments showed benefit over the broadcast treatments. Indeed, it was common to see a combine drilled treatment, with only 15-20kgP/ha applied, looking visibly better than a broadcast treatment which received more than double the amount of phosphorous.
These trials on the BETTER farms last year were done on P Index 1 soils and the visible difference continued well into the season but became less pronounced later in the season. But Mark reported that the visible early growth benefit from the combine drilled treatments continued through to yield.
In general, the yield benefit from combine drilling was about 2.5 t/ha (1t/ac) on the Index 1 soils and about 1.0 t/ha on the Index 2 soils. There was no yield benefit found from applied P on Index 4 sites.
Mark reported that he had also looked at the use of P seed dressings and phosphite applications on some of these sites. He said that the 2012 results showed no benefit from either P seed dressing or foliar applied phosphite at these sites. He also reported that winter wheat did not respond beneficially to seedbed P and K on these low index soils. We have always said that this is likely to be the case given that winter crops have almost six months root growth completed before they move to rapid vegetative growth post-stem extension. But, interestingly, Mark reported that there was definite benefit shown from spring application of P and K at the Index 1 sites for winter crops.
The yield robbers
Many different factors conspired to take away bits of yield potential in 2012, with wheat generally suffering worse that barley or oats. Lack of radiation was undoubtedly part of the problem and John Spink of Oak Park once again emphasised the fact that grain filling commenced 10 days later than in 2011 and it was shorter by two to six days. The result was a 13-22% reduction in radiation during the grain filling period for wheat and this crop depends on continued photosynthesis for grain fill.
Temperature was also a factor, especially for spring barley in early spring. Low temperatures during April in particular were likely to have slowed growth and resulted in some decrease in ear density and grain number. These lower temperatures slowed development and ultimately reduced growth. Ear growth itself was also much slower as a consequence of these factors, resulting in lower overall yield levels. And lower grain number per square meter is put as a significant reason for the lower barley yields in 2012.
But there were other factors too and high levels of BYDV and take-all were present in some crops in springtime. But John stated that these were unlikely to have been major factors in 2012.
Water logging was also a significant factor. According to research, plants suffer in the long term if they are subjected to as little as three days of water-logged conditions. Root death is another likely consequence, especially in young plants.
John also stated research findings which revealed that photosynthesis level is reduced by as much as 80% after as little as three days of soil water logging. And there were certainly far more than three days last summer when our soils were water logged.
Disease control was also a factor, with poor septoria control evident in many crops and ear blight making an unwanted appearance towards the end of the season. John said that the main cause of ear blight was Microdochium nivale and this is difficult to target with sprays. He said that 50% control is as good as it gets and trials showed roughly 0.75 t/ha yield improvement from T3 sprays indicating that the presence of this disease is likely to account for 1.5 t/ha yield loss in an untreated situation.
Poor septoria control was a common problem. John stated that fungicides worked well but that the inherent yield potential was much lower and the fungicides could not improve that. The trials indicated that there was roughly a 1.5t/ha penalty for being seven days late with the T2 application plus a further 0.5 t/ha penalty where application was 14 days late.
KEY POINTS
Combine drilled phosphate can have a big impact on early season growth of spring cereals on low P index soils with consequential yield benefits. The yield benefits found from combine drilling were roughly 2.5 t/ha on Index 1 soils and 1.0 t/ha on Index 2 soils. Road travel can add significantly to the cost of working land, with cost estimates ranging from €3.28 to €151.28/ha additional cost. As little as three days of water logged soil conditions can decrease photosynthesis by as much as 80%. This, along with reduced radiation and diseases, contributed to the decreased yields achieved in 2012.Machinery – one-third of production costs
Machinery costs account for one-third of total production costs, according to findings in the Teagasc Farm Management Survey. Also, according to figures presented by Dermot Forristal, the average cost of €415/ha in Ireland is about 20% higher than the equivalent figure of €348/ha in Britain. He also showed that the cost of machinery on tillage farms, both here and in Britain, has increased by about 30% over the past six years.
The importance of knowing your own machinery costs cannot be over emphasised and Dermot commented on how difficult it is to get a firm handle on these costs. Replacement cycles, depreciation, repair costs, interest repayments, etc are uncertain and it is quite difficult to value the timeliness that ownership may bring. “Machinery is an input and costs and benefits need to be analysed”, Dermot stated.
Teagasc has developed a new machinery cost programme and this is incorporated into the e-Profit Monitor to better estimate the breakdown of all costs on a tillage farm, including machinery. The machinery cost calculator in the e-Profit Monitor gives a snap shot of a single year’s machinery costs, which takes into consideration items such as fuel, repairs and maintenance, depreciation, interest, etc. However, for someone wanting a more comprehensive breakdown of costs to help guide machinery decisions, Dermot said that the full Oak Park machinery cost programme is more relevant but it also requires much more detail for analysis.
“Machinery is an input but not an asset,” Dermot stated. He said replacement policy which purchases machinery just to avoid paying tax is not sensible. He also warned against the purchase of technology which scale does not justify and against the purchase of bigger capacity machines to achieve economies of scale where the land is not available to begin with. He warned against investing based on repayment capacity when one is heavily exposed to the volatility in the market with a depreciating asset.
There are many factors which affect the cost of operating machinery and some are unique to Ireland. The need for excess capacity is an obvious cost, especially where a single crop occupies the majority of the acreage. But field size is a real issue too and Dermot showed that rectangular fields are more efficient and carry a slightly lower combining cost than square fields but this benefit gets smaller as fields get bigger. And, in general, combining cost gets lower as field size gets bigger. The data Dermot presented also showed that where fields are smaller, category two combines tend to be more efficient than larger category four machines, but again this changes as fields get bigger.
The cost of travel
“Distance costs money.” Land that is located away from one’s farmyard base probably costs much more to service than you think, due to the number of times that machines are brought this distance to service this land. Little was known about the associated cost of distant land but this is a real issue given the fragmented nature of many tillage farms.
Teagasc did a modelling exercise to estimate the cost of travel for a 320ha farm that had land up to 30km from the base farmyard. Dermot emphasised that, while the numbers he presented were estimates and not validated by actual farm costings, the components of cost are quite real and based on distance, time, fuel, depreciation, repairs etc. The bottom line is that time spent on the road requires additional machine capacity.
The figures showed that a 9.0ha parcel located 3.2km from the yard had a ‘distance cost’ of €22/ha. In this case, machinery was taken to and from the field for every operation. Another 9ha piece of land located 21km away had a ‘distance cost’ of €150/ha because all machinery had to be taken to and fro for every operation. But a 17ha field 20km away had a calculated cost of €71/ha because there was an out-farm nearby with its own sheds etc where machinery could be left overnight and which acted as a second base for a cluster of land located nearby.
So, the ‘distance cost’ is quite real but is not just distance as other factors like the size of the block of land, the travel speed on the road, machine capacity and closeness to other adjacent blocks all act to alter the actual cost.
In this modelling exercise the cost of land away from the farmyard ranged from €3.28 to €151.28/ha, with an average for the 320ha farm of €66.42/ha. But the bottom line is that servicing these fields away from the farm base added €20,825 per year to machinery costs. And the travel time added 407 hours of machine time on the road or roughly 1.3 hours of travel time per hectare on this farm.
Regardless of whether these numbers are 100% correct or not, the fact is that road time costs money and it is very difficult to make money on the road. These costs are a real penalty on land away from the farmyard base. While many farmers have little choice but to incur these costs, they should be reflected in the value afforded by distant land. It is common to have farmers passing each other on the road going in opposite directions to work land but is unlikely that we will see cooperation in the land market to help efficiency.
There were simple messages about how to approach disease control, about the importance of phosphate in the seedbed for spring crops and about the additional costs associated with travel to land away from the farmyard.
This week I report on some of the topics from the tillage conference, with more next week.
Base fertilizer responses
Phosphorous is very important to help provide a good start to establishing crops, especially spring crops. Mark Plunkett of Teagasc reminded us that soil P levels, as shown in the soil test results generated through Teagasc, have fallen in recent years. The proportion of soils at Index 3 and 4 is decreasing while the numbers at Index 1 and 2 are increasing. On potash, the proportion of samples at Index 1 and Index 4 is decreasing, which represents improving soil fertility management on tillage farms, especially in recent years.
Mark showed how balanced nutrition, based on nutrient off-takes, could be seen in soil fertility trends on some of the BETTER tillage farms in recent years. Crop fertilization must be based on the crop grown and the total nutrient removed in yield and straw. He emphasised the importance of accurate sampling to monitor progress and referred to the fact that future sampling on these farms would be done on a reference area rather than the whole field. This will more accurately monitor fertility balance on specific field areas.
The importance of balanced fertility was also emphasised, with pH being critical for nutrient availability in soils. Some of the examples he used showed the importance of P and K balance in the applied fertilizer. Mark emphasised the importance of “buying what you need, not what you are being sold”. Fertilizers with the wrong P and K balance can quickly push either element out of balance, thus altering soil fertility over time.
Good soil fertility has more impact for higher yield potential than increased fertilizer rates and so the objective must always be to push fertility towards Index 3. Mark emphasised that soil phosphate level is slow to change and so it takes longer for soil levels to drop if inadequate P is applied. However, for the same reason, it is also more difficult to raise soil P level.
Combine drilling
Because phosphorous drives plant rooting and tillering, the effects of early application and placement can impact on plant growth. This was easily seen in the BETTER farm plots in 2012 and we published pictures which clearly showed the benefit of combine drilling last spring. Cold and dryness adversely affect P availability in soil and these conditions prevailed in the early part of last spring.
However, Mark emphasised that the broadcast treatments were applied immediately after drilling and then ring rolled, giving them much greater chance of benefit because the fertilizer was pushed closer to the seed to begin with. But, in the absence of rain, fertilizer (especially P and K) placed on top of the ground will be much less available to the actively growing plants below.
All the different combine drilled treatments showed benefit over the broadcast treatments. Indeed, it was common to see a combine drilled treatment, with only 15-20kgP/ha applied, looking visibly better than a broadcast treatment which received more than double the amount of phosphorous.
These trials on the BETTER farms last year were done on P Index 1 soils and the visible difference continued well into the season but became less pronounced later in the season. But Mark reported that the visible early growth benefit from the combine drilled treatments continued through to yield.
In general, the yield benefit from combine drilling was about 2.5 t/ha (1t/ac) on the Index 1 soils and about 1.0 t/ha on the Index 2 soils. There was no yield benefit found from applied P on Index 4 sites.
Mark reported that he had also looked at the use of P seed dressings and phosphite applications on some of these sites. He said that the 2012 results showed no benefit from either P seed dressing or foliar applied phosphite at these sites. He also reported that winter wheat did not respond beneficially to seedbed P and K on these low index soils. We have always said that this is likely to be the case given that winter crops have almost six months root growth completed before they move to rapid vegetative growth post-stem extension. But, interestingly, Mark reported that there was definite benefit shown from spring application of P and K at the Index 1 sites for winter crops.
The yield robbers
Many different factors conspired to take away bits of yield potential in 2012, with wheat generally suffering worse that barley or oats. Lack of radiation was undoubtedly part of the problem and John Spink of Oak Park once again emphasised the fact that grain filling commenced 10 days later than in 2011 and it was shorter by two to six days. The result was a 13-22% reduction in radiation during the grain filling period for wheat and this crop depends on continued photosynthesis for grain fill.
Temperature was also a factor, especially for spring barley in early spring. Low temperatures during April in particular were likely to have slowed growth and resulted in some decrease in ear density and grain number. These lower temperatures slowed development and ultimately reduced growth. Ear growth itself was also much slower as a consequence of these factors, resulting in lower overall yield levels. And lower grain number per square meter is put as a significant reason for the lower barley yields in 2012.
But there were other factors too and high levels of BYDV and take-all were present in some crops in springtime. But John stated that these were unlikely to have been major factors in 2012.
Water logging was also a significant factor. According to research, plants suffer in the long term if they are subjected to as little as three days of water-logged conditions. Root death is another likely consequence, especially in young plants.
John also stated research findings which revealed that photosynthesis level is reduced by as much as 80% after as little as three days of soil water logging. And there were certainly far more than three days last summer when our soils were water logged.
Disease control was also a factor, with poor septoria control evident in many crops and ear blight making an unwanted appearance towards the end of the season. John said that the main cause of ear blight was Microdochium nivale and this is difficult to target with sprays. He said that 50% control is as good as it gets and trials showed roughly 0.75 t/ha yield improvement from T3 sprays indicating that the presence of this disease is likely to account for 1.5 t/ha yield loss in an untreated situation.
Poor septoria control was a common problem. John stated that fungicides worked well but that the inherent yield potential was much lower and the fungicides could not improve that. The trials indicated that there was roughly a 1.5t/ha penalty for being seven days late with the T2 application plus a further 0.5 t/ha penalty where application was 14 days late.
KEY POINTS
Combine drilled phosphate can have a big impact on early season growth of spring cereals on low P index soils with consequential yield benefits. The yield benefits found from combine drilling were roughly 2.5 t/ha on Index 1 soils and 1.0 t/ha on Index 2 soils. Road travel can add significantly to the cost of working land, with cost estimates ranging from €3.28 to €151.28/ha additional cost. As little as three days of water logged soil conditions can decrease photosynthesis by as much as 80%. This, along with reduced radiation and diseases, contributed to the decreased yields achieved in 2012.Machinery – one-third of production costs
Machinery costs account for one-third of total production costs, according to findings in the Teagasc Farm Management Survey. Also, according to figures presented by Dermot Forristal, the average cost of €415/ha in Ireland is about 20% higher than the equivalent figure of €348/ha in Britain. He also showed that the cost of machinery on tillage farms, both here and in Britain, has increased by about 30% over the past six years.
The importance of knowing your own machinery costs cannot be over emphasised and Dermot commented on how difficult it is to get a firm handle on these costs. Replacement cycles, depreciation, repair costs, interest repayments, etc are uncertain and it is quite difficult to value the timeliness that ownership may bring. “Machinery is an input and costs and benefits need to be analysed”, Dermot stated.
Teagasc has developed a new machinery cost programme and this is incorporated into the e-Profit Monitor to better estimate the breakdown of all costs on a tillage farm, including machinery. The machinery cost calculator in the e-Profit Monitor gives a snap shot of a single year’s machinery costs, which takes into consideration items such as fuel, repairs and maintenance, depreciation, interest, etc. However, for someone wanting a more comprehensive breakdown of costs to help guide machinery decisions, Dermot said that the full Oak Park machinery cost programme is more relevant but it also requires much more detail for analysis.
“Machinery is an input but not an asset,” Dermot stated. He said replacement policy which purchases machinery just to avoid paying tax is not sensible. He also warned against the purchase of technology which scale does not justify and against the purchase of bigger capacity machines to achieve economies of scale where the land is not available to begin with. He warned against investing based on repayment capacity when one is heavily exposed to the volatility in the market with a depreciating asset.
There are many factors which affect the cost of operating machinery and some are unique to Ireland. The need for excess capacity is an obvious cost, especially where a single crop occupies the majority of the acreage. But field size is a real issue too and Dermot showed that rectangular fields are more efficient and carry a slightly lower combining cost than square fields but this benefit gets smaller as fields get bigger. And, in general, combining cost gets lower as field size gets bigger. The data Dermot presented also showed that where fields are smaller, category two combines tend to be more efficient than larger category four machines, but again this changes as fields get bigger.
The cost of travel
“Distance costs money.” Land that is located away from one’s farmyard base probably costs much more to service than you think, due to the number of times that machines are brought this distance to service this land. Little was known about the associated cost of distant land but this is a real issue given the fragmented nature of many tillage farms.
Teagasc did a modelling exercise to estimate the cost of travel for a 320ha farm that had land up to 30km from the base farmyard. Dermot emphasised that, while the numbers he presented were estimates and not validated by actual farm costings, the components of cost are quite real and based on distance, time, fuel, depreciation, repairs etc. The bottom line is that time spent on the road requires additional machine capacity.
The figures showed that a 9.0ha parcel located 3.2km from the yard had a ‘distance cost’ of €22/ha. In this case, machinery was taken to and from the field for every operation. Another 9ha piece of land located 21km away had a ‘distance cost’ of €150/ha because all machinery had to be taken to and fro for every operation. But a 17ha field 20km away had a calculated cost of €71/ha because there was an out-farm nearby with its own sheds etc where machinery could be left overnight and which acted as a second base for a cluster of land located nearby.
So, the ‘distance cost’ is quite real but is not just distance as other factors like the size of the block of land, the travel speed on the road, machine capacity and closeness to other adjacent blocks all act to alter the actual cost.
In this modelling exercise the cost of land away from the farmyard ranged from €3.28 to €151.28/ha, with an average for the 320ha farm of €66.42/ha. But the bottom line is that servicing these fields away from the farm base added €20,825 per year to machinery costs. And the travel time added 407 hours of machine time on the road or roughly 1.3 hours of travel time per hectare on this farm.
Regardless of whether these numbers are 100% correct or not, the fact is that road time costs money and it is very difficult to make money on the road. These costs are a real penalty on land away from the farmyard base. While many farmers have little choice but to incur these costs, they should be reflected in the value afforded by distant land. It is common to have farmers passing each other on the road going in opposite directions to work land but is unlikely that we will see cooperation in the land market to help efficiency.
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