Good planting progress: There has been a lot of spring crop planting done over the past few weeks but this varies from region to region. Some parts of the country were rained off last week, with others being stopped this week.

Currently the forecast for the rest of this week and next week is not great, but Met Eireann is indicating that the third week in April will be good for field work.

Planting: There is still planting of most crops going on, but it is getting late for spring wheat and oats and also for spring beans. The exception to this might be someone planting spring wheat for whole crop. Beans planted now will be lower yielding and late ripening.

There is still an amount of spring barley to be planted as there is land coming out of grass and vegetable crops. We are still only into the end of the first full week in April so this will leave the national crop relatively early sown on average.

Any remaining spring barley should go in at 350 seeds/m2 to establish around 320 plants/m2 using around 165kg/ha (10.5 st/ac) of seed. Conditions are warming up slightly so we should expect establishment to be above 90% again.

It is now time for spring rape to be sown also. Seeding rates can be 5-7kg/ha, the lower of the range being preferable where establishment is expected to be good. It is important for spring rape to establish fast and grow away rapidly from the start, as this helps it to compete with weeds and hopefully not require herbicide.

The MATIF futures price for November rape went over €790/t this week so try to lock in some sales once you plant, but a green price could be much closer to €700/t.

Maize continues to go in under plastic and hopefully the frost is finished to allow planting in the open now too. Try to have your planted area close to the tonnage that customers want, as you cannot depend on other sales in a scenario where a fodder famine is being forecast and you do not have a commitment to purchase at this point. The same is true of fodder beet.

Winter crops: Final nitrogen (60kg N/ha) should be applied to all winter rape at this point, unless you intend to apply some in liquid form later through your sprayer. The main N splits are going on to winter cereals now also – many are already applied because most crops are quite forward this spring so far.

Regarding rates, firstly know your N index for each field and crop and work out your maximum allowances along with any added quantity based on the farm average yield that you can prove for any specific crop in recent years.

See details here. Technically you must have proof of a higher yield for any crop to exceed the rates set out in Table 3 in that article, as these are legal limits.

While grain prices seem strong at the moment, there may still be scope to reduce your maximum N rates by 5-10% in view of growth already made and the possibility of higher soil N carryover this year.