Land is wet: Land remains too wet in most parts of the country to even think of ploughing, not to mention planting. However, it is noticeable that tillage areas well away from the coast seem to have much lower rainfall so far in January and there has been an amount of ploughing done. The one positive thing that can be said is that it is better to be getting winter weather now than in the spring or summer.

Be ready with fertiliser: In reality, we should not be thinking about fertiliser, especially nitrogen, for another month or so. But now that we have slipped back into growthy conditions, I would be very tempted to get out around 10kg of N/ha or less on a forward crop of winter barley, to prevent it going off colour, ground conditions permitting. This should help to maintain higher yield potential.

When winter barley loses leaves and tillers, it loses yield potential. This very low rate would mean that you could cover a lot of acres with a fill of a spreader of N. The low rate would also mean no risk of making crops soft or significant leaching loss.

There is no urgency with wheat or oats, as these crops have far greater potential to compensate late into the season.

Application is a matter of judging timing against signs of visible growth and weather prospects. Urgency is influenced by geography, crop condition, ability to travel and the likelihood of growth or heavy rain. The more advanced the crop, the greater the need for some early nitrogen.

Driving canopy in rape: Winter rape is the most urgent crop for N. Early N drives canopy production, but the amount of canopy needed depends on how much is there to begin with. Canopy can vary from very low green area index (GAI 0.5) following late planting, or pigeon grazing up to GAI 2.5, where a crop was sown early.

You can measure canopy by taking a photo of a crop canopy and putting it into the canopy measurement app on a smartphone, or send it to your computer and log on to OSR GAI Online (basf.co.uk). Enter the date the photo was taken, a location and the row spacing. The computer will then calculate the GAI. This can then be used to calculate the early nitrogen requirement to drive the required 3.5 GAI, so that you do not produce excess canopy. The higher the canopy reading, the less early N is required.

In crops that need to make a lot of canopy, it may be beneficial to apply 30-40kg N/ha when you can travel. The remainder of the canopy nitrogen can be held until growth is more likely. The GAI to guide spring growth should be taken around the end of February, before the balance of the N is applied.

Soil health video: Soil health is an important driver of soil productivity. It is much more than just fertility, and a video produced for the Sustainable Farm Insights programme explains simply the different aspects of soil health in tillage and grass enterprises. It is available on ifj.ie/sfi