In times of challenging incomes, research is key to unlocking both yield improvement technologies and potential cost reductions. It also identifies problems or challenges and helps point the way to cost-effective responses for farmers. This report outlines some of the messages from the recent national tillage conference, with more next week.

Discovery research on oats

For the past number of years, John Finnan has been researching many aspects of the oat crop and he presented some of these findings at the conference. Oats are now officially accepted as delivering health benefits in food products.

Opening his presentation John stated that the oat area was once as high as 672,000ha. Back then, oats was the primary energy source as a feed for horses.

He also said that the majority of husbandry for oats had been borrowed from other cereals.

One of the main differences between oats and other cereals is that the plant has a panicle rather than an ear. This can carry high grain numbers, over 200 per panicle compared with roughly 25 for barley and 40 for wheat.

Seed rate and plant population obviously affect the number of grains per panicle. John’s research found up to 200 grains from seed rates of 100 seeds/m2 and down to 80 grains at 500 seeds/m2.

Tillers can contribute significantly to yield at low plant populations. John reported that the crop tends to suppress or kill neighbouring oat plants in very high plant populations, a process known as auto-toxicity.

Work on seed rates found an optimum rate of about 350 seeds/m2. Seed rate was found to have very little effect on KPH.

John concluded that a population of 250 to 300 plants/m2 in springtime is optimum. This allows for a level of plant loss, which is possible for a range of reasons, between planting and spring.

On nitrogen rates, John found an optimum of between 120 and 150kg N/ha. Rates above the optimum did not produce higher grain yield and did not result in either more grains per square metre or more grains per panicle.

However, higher nitrogen rates consistently decreased hectolitre weight by 1kg for every 30kg N/ha above 60kg N/ha.

Nitrogen timing also had an effect. While there was little impact of split rates on yield, as long as it was applied by stem extension, the effect of higher later splits on hectolitre weight was negative. Comparing GS30 and GS32 timings, the less early and the more late N applied, the lower the specific weight. John indicated a 1kg/hl drop for every additional 30kg N/ha applied at the later timing.

Recognising oat and barley benefits

With the vast majority of Irish-grown grain destined for animal feed, research that points to potential use in bakery products is welcome. Beta glucan (ß-glucan) is a soluble fibre component with well-recognised health benefits.

It is present at significant levels in oat and barley grains and said to have a beneficial role in insulin resistance, cholesterol management, hypertension and obesity.

Consequently, there is increasing interest in the inclusion of ß-glucan in food products as a source of fibre, plus its health-enhancing properties.

At the conference, Eimear Gallagher from Teagasc’s National Food Centre presented a series of research results which showed successful inclusion of a percentage of barley and oats into some baked products.

Eimear showed that the ß-glucan content of barley was five to six times higher than wheat.

Experiments with bread found that up to 30% inclusion of barley resulted in the production of satisfactory bread. Similar beneficial results were found with addition in saltine crackers.

Oat flour and bran were tested in biscuit manufacture and then assessed using a sensory panel. The results were very favourable, especially where oat flour was added at 15% of the grist.

Concluding, Eimear said that her research indicated the possibility of including barley and oats into some baked products with no negative consequences for eating characteristics.

The challenge now is to develop a demand-driven supply chain to encourage the use of barley and oats in such products.

Septoria challenge grows

Having fewer actives with decreasing efficacy is hardly a path to simple and successful disease control, especially for septoria, which continues to develop decreasing sensitivity to our main actives.

At the tillage conference, Steven Kildea of Teagasc said that we still have a number of fungicide families with good disease control activity in barley. But it remains important to use this diversity to help against resistance development.

There are some real issues for concern, such as the ability to control ramularia, but we must also guard against increasing problems in net blotch and rhyncho.

The situation against septoria is much less satisfactory, Steven emphasised. Over the past 10 to 12 years, septoria populations in Ireland have decreased 14-fold in their sensitivity to azole actives. And in the past two years, he has measured an eight-fold decrease in septoria sensitivity to SDHI actives.

These are very worrying developments and basically point to a significant decrease in curativity against the disease.

This increases the necessity for timeliness, both in terms of treatment timing and spray interval. In this new scenario, Steven said that there may be benefit in a stop-gap treatment with a contact active when the second-last leaf is fully unfolded, especially in very broken weather.