Winter ploughing: Now that December is just about with us, the season opens for winter ploughing. While rainfall amounts are variable, some areas may have conditions suitable for ploughing unless there is another dump of rain.

Winter ploughing has become a bit of a dilemma in recent years. While having an amount of land ploughed can be very useful come spring, we must acknowledge the consequences of leaving soil bare over the winter. Soil with no plant cover is very subject to damage by rain as the drops cause millions of little explosions on the surface.

Nowadays there is a growing realisation that having land bare over winter is a lost opportunity for carbon sequestration, as well as the risk to soil structure. Catch crops have shown this to many growers and as soil improves through minding, the sowing window widens in spring. And opportunities to plant without ploughing are becoming more apparent and more acceptable.

So, winter ploughing might give way to winter growing as the benefits of cover crops become more apparent on farms. Incentives to increase soil carbon add another reason to do this but farmers who want to have a long-term future in tillage should be doing this anyway.

Catch crops and GLAS: Following on from above, those with catch or cover crops in the ground should not be rushing out to burn them off.

While crops are somewhat variable, depending on planting date, they remain more useful alive than dead. Just because they can be burned off in December does not mean that this is the best thing to do.

Leave them to grow for as long as is practical, as the foliage helps protect your soil and live roots can pump out water come spring.

It takes a few years to see the added friability benefits of cover crops, or any form of organic matter, come through in your soil but the benefits are well worth it.

Where catch crops are to be grazed, there is definite benefit in not grazing too tight. Leaving an amount of vegetation will enable regrowth to help continue to protect your soil. Living roots will also help to keep the soil open. This combination of grazing and regrowth provides readily available nutrients from dung and urine, plus organic matter to go back into the soil.

And for those with their own stock, animal performance will be better as there will always be clean fresh feed ahead of the grazing stock.

ITLUS conference: The annual ITLUS conference takes place online this year due to the ongoing restrictions. It is to be held as a Zoom webinar on 3 December starting at 10.00am and finishing at 11.30am ahead of the ITLUS AGM. The meeting is to focus on updates from the CAP negotiations and new nitrates regulations. It will also have a brief review of the ITLUS study tour which went to Australia last January. If you would like to listen in, contact Eugene Ryan at itlussec50@gmail.com for information.