Agriculture in Northern Ireland faces many challenges. At the recent arable conference organised jointly by CAFRE, the Ulster Arable Society (UAS) and the Ulster Farmers’ Union (UFU), UAS chair Robert Moore said that it was organised against a background of challenges from the new CAP, conacre availability, high input costs, political challenges and a proposed cut in budgets for the NI department of agriculture (DARD) and for research.

Opening the conference, National Farmers Union vice president Guy Smith said the existence of direct producer involvement in research on this island is hugely important. He said that the breaking of the link between ADAS and British farmers was not a strategic decision.

Guy farms in east Essex in one of the driest areas in Britain, with less than 12in of rain in some years. While he acknowledges that weather patterns are changing, he is less convinced about climate change, per se. That said, volatile global weather means volatile farm prices and so it is of major significance to farmers. Increased unpredictability in the weather brings additional focus on drainage and irrigation to help minimise their impact on yield.

Guy had two specific messages: pesticides and environment.

“Our plant protection armoury has been decreased massively. Not so many years ago, there were 850 products listed for use in Britain. This is now reduced to 220 and new measures in the pipeline threaten further reductions,” he said.

It is not just the number of products – there is huge practical significance in the fact that whole families of chemicals are being lost. And there are very few new products being developed in response to this legislative uncertainty.

Producers are being asked to meet ever tighter specs while at the same time some of the essential tools are being taken from us, eg triazoles and mycotoxins.

Farmers use crop protection products responsibly because they are a direct cost. Guy suggested that all farmers state this fact in public to help educate consumers on these facts.

His second message related to the environment. Farmers have always managed the countryside. Its patchwork appearance is a historical consequence of farmers’ actions.

“Be proud of this,” he stated, “and do not be afraid to showcase your industry.”

He called on farmers to be proactive in terms of the environment and greening, to locate biodiversity areas in consumers’ faces and to measure this, where possible, to show that farmers care.

Greening in NI

The new CAP brings three new schemes: the Basic Payment Scheme (BPS), greening and a young farmer top-up payment.

Keith Johnston from DARD talked about greening issues and warned farmers that the EFA obligation will depend on the total arable land farmed rather than just the cropped area. Knowing which fields are permanent pasture is an important part of this process. While farmers are allowed to plough permanent pasture, there is a classification in the NI called “environmentally sensitive permanent grassland” and such land cannot be ploughed in future.

There are a number of other rule differences between the two jurisdictions. The same definition applies to temporary grassland, but fields growing sainfoin, clover, lucerne or forage vetches are not deemed to be arable.

The rules state that a crop must be present during from 1 June to 31 July each year or have the residue/stubble present to enable an inspector to identify the original crop.

A similar range of landscape features and land uses are allowed in the north, but one can use earth banks, as well as hedges, for EFA. However, the only nitrogen-fixing crops allowed are peas, beans and sweet lupins.

Earth banks (defined as a manmade linear feature) and archaeological features can be used for EFA, but only at one square metre per square metre. One other difference is that dry stone walls can be used in NI, but they only accrue 1m2 per metre length.

The definition of a hedge appears much tighter in NI and there are a number of stated specific size requirements. A ditch, drain or sheugh must be visibly manmade to count as EFA. Naturally flowing streams and rivers cannot be used.

Keith warned against the double counting of hedge and drain features in a parcel where the total area was used to provide EFA as fallow, protein or some other land use.

Excessive obligations

Andrew Herron farms in a father-and-son partnership, growing a number of crops in Co Down. In this coming year, he will apply for the BPS and will have to prove he is an active farmer and meet cross-compliance requirements. As well as that, he will need to meet crop diversification and EFA requirements and he hopes to qualify for the Young Farmers Scheme.

While Andrew appreciates the financial support coming from these different schemes, he wonders if, on balance, the use of trained scientists would be better served advising farmers on technical efficiency matters rather than being farm police. And he wondered if policy administrators and inspectors are being forced to be more efficient in order to be competitive and sustainable.

Andrew said his farm will need 7ha of EFA to meet its 5% EFA obligation. He estimates that he will have almost 4ha from landscape features and fallow and thinks that he will just add a bit of additional fallow to make up the balance.

Research fears

Research is important to sustain the future of any industry. Sinclair Mayne of AFBI indicated that DARD provides about 60% of AFBI’s annual funding and that this looks set to decrease in the coming year due to financial cutbacks.

This will apply across all sectors, but the operation of the cuts could see some services discontinued in order to meet budget constraints. There will be future challenges and Sinclair asked for interaction from across the industry as to how a reduced budget would be best used.

With regard to variety evaluation, Ethel White of AFBI said that the NI recommended list of winter wheat varieties has only two varieties in common with the southern list. This reinforces the need for local evaluation. She said that the 6% yield difference between the lowest- and highest-yielding variety is worth about £90/ha.

Ethel said that AFBI is involved in a range of other research projects also – some of which are being done in conjunction with Teagasc. Some of this AFBI work is looking at the longer-term benefits of adding organic matter to arable soils, as well as evaluating the contribution of organic manures to crop yield generation.

Herbicide resistance

Herbicide resistance is a growing problem globally and we in Ireland are not immune. Stephen Moss, a specialist herbicide researcher at Rothamsted in England, said that there are now over 200 weeds showing true herbicide resistance globally to a range of herbicide families (see Figure 1).

Black grass is perhaps the most significant problem in western Europe. This is a huge problem in parts of Britain where some populations are now resistant to all available herbicide families.

Looking at the history of herbicide actives, Stephen said that there are 25 mode-of-action families and 22 of these now have some level of resistance. The bigger problem is that there is no sign of new modes of action being developed.

For this reason, Stephen emphasised that the prevention of further resistance is a critical control factor, rather than waiting to react to new problems. Herbicides need help and it is up to growers to provide this.

There were a number of instances of blackgrass in Irish fields last season. One was cut for silage to prevent seed production. Two samples from the south were sent to Stephen for confirmation – one was not blackgrass, while the other was.

However, Stephen confirmed that the Irish sample did not carry any of the resistance mechanisms, suggesting that it may have been present in Ireland for many years.

Asked about possible reasons as to why blackgrass has not become a problem on this island, Stephen put later planting and the predominance of ploughing as the main factors that limit its expansion.

Herbicide resistance in Italian ryegrass is much less prominent, but more severe in the hotspots where it occurs. Resistance in wild oats is also limited, but extremely severe where it occurs and Stephen believes that this weed has a big potential for resistance development.

Chickweed is possibly the biggest problem in broad-leaved weeds, but there are also known problems in poppy and corn marigold to the ASL family.

There are also concerns about resistance in chickweed to CMPP-P, but resistance itself has not been proven. There are some instances of mayweed resistance, but this problem is quite severe in Germany.

Phosphate

The importance of phosphate for tillage crops was emphasised in a presentation by Teagasc’s David Wall.

“As well as feeding plants, phosphorous is also used by soil microbes and can be chemically bonded by the soil itself. So applied P may show different effects in different fields,” David said.

There is always a race between the different demands so husbandry can affect the efficiency of applied P.

Some soil P will get locked up in soil organic matter and a lot more P will be present in other plant unavailable forms. Indeed, soil testing is generally only looking at the 1% of soil P that may be available to plants.

David reported on an ongoing experiment which looked at a range of soil samples from around the country. These are being monitored for their P and lime status following the application of either P or lime, or both.

Application of lime alone increased P availability by one to two index levels, as P is more available at higher pH levels. Application of P doubled this benefit and application of both P and lime was almost double again.

He reported on another experiment which showed big benefit from combine-drilling P with the seed on low P sites for spring barley. Having the P close to the seed in the seedbed encouraged early tiller production, which was later translated into higher grain yield in spring barley.

Combine drilling was found to be much less beneficial in winter wheat because the crop has more time to forage for nutrient before rapid growth takes place in spring.

Asked what the situation might be for winter barley, David suggested that seedbed application might be more beneficial in low P soils as active autumn growth and tiller retention are important to generate and maintain a high yield potential.

Soil improvement

Gerald Potterton spoke about his need to address his deteriorating soils. He described the hardship his land had suffered in conventional plough/power harrow establishment systems.

“This combination of tools, combined with enough power, could be used to batter wet seedbeds into submission, but our soils were suffering and we were farming without a future,” he said.

In 2001, he moved to min-till and straw incorporation in an attempt to improve his silty, clay loam soils. His early efforts were successful, with seedbeds becoming more friable and workable. But success was short-lived as compaction and reduced water infiltration soon began to dominate again.

Gerald concluded that cultivation of heavy soils is problematic, regardless of the system, and he now wonders if cover crops are the missing link.

On balance, reduced cultivations have helped the soil and he reckons there were no yield penalties on winter crops. Soil friability is now much better; work rates have increased and establishment costs have been decreased. But bad weather forced him to return to the plough in some years.

Gerald is generally happy with the improvement in his soils as a result of min-till and organic matter incorporation. And now he is wondering if strip-till or zero-till should be a natural progression.

There are many benefits heralded for both systems, with reduced establishment costs being a big one. But Gerald warned that reduced establishment cost is of little benefit if it is accompanied by reduced output.

Given the nature of his soil, he feels that some form of loosening will remain important and so any further move is more likely to be towards a strip-till system.

But whatever about the choice of metal, Gerald is increasingly interested in the use of cover crops to help protect and open up soils over winter.