Harvest not yet complete for some

Current and former From the Tramlines participants reflected on a “rollercoaster” of a year and their farms’ challenges and achievements during the opening session of Tillage Day.

Patrick Kehoe, based near Bunclody, Co Wexford, told the crowd that he still has 28ac of spring beans to cut as they are very slow to ripen.

“The year definitely suited them, we got more rain than normal in the summer and the beans looked well all year,” but Patrick explained further that the poor sunshine levels and lack of heat meant that they stayed green for much longer than usual.

He noted that he cut beans on 19 November in 2015, so he is not giving up just yet. Despite the hardship being caused, Patrick says he will continue to grow beans as they are a great entry point for gluten-free oats, one of the premium crops on his farm.

Tony Bell, from Balbriggan in Dublin, was also disappointed with beans this year, saying that it was his worst year ever for beans. They were planted very late and then a lack of rainfall over the summer months in his area meant that many flowers aborted.

However, Tony did note that he still had a positive margin on the crop as he had cut costs down to the bare minimum.

Maize

Tony’s harvest is still ongoing too. He still has a lot of maize to harvest. However, he said that this is not an issue this year due to the settled weather and lack of frost in his coastal location.

His strip tillage system also provides good soil structure, with no tyre marks left in the field whatsoever.

Tom Murray, agronomist with O’Shea Farms in Kilkenny, told the crowd that the main potato harvest is over, with only one of their suppliers still lifting potatoes.

He said that after a very challenging couple of years, “we needed a break,” and the recent weather has given farmers a chance to get potatoes lifted in good conditions and winter crops planted.

“We were very late planting this year, we could forecast from this that yields were going to be back, but with the growing season that we got, solar radiation and temperatures weren’t great, and we couldn’t make up the shortfall in growth,” which exacerbated the issues and has seen yields fall by 10 to 20%.

However, quality is high and little damage is being caused at harvest.

Tom said that the lower than usual yields is not as much of an issue with the potato crops, as the price will rise when supply falls.

However, on the horticultural side, fixed-price contracts are the norm and as inputs are bought at the start of the year “this can become a big problem,” especially with margins tightening in the horticultural sector.

The conversation between Patrick, Tom and Tony turned to growing forage crops for livestock. Patrick Kehoe buys in store lambs to graze on cover crops each winter.

He explained that this can influence his crop rotation as cover crops have a much better chance to establish and grow a large amount of biomass after winter barley than spring barley.

“I like winter barley because I can get in my cover crops that bit earlier to get a good crop in place for store lambs because I find that when you plant them after spring crops, they just don’t establish well and you’re limited as to how much you can graze.”

He continued on to say that the Agri Climate Rural Environment Scheme, (ACRES) requirement to not graze cover crops until 1 January is also impacting his farm.

Concentrates to compensate

“It’s a major problem on our farm because we need to graze the crop before it goes to seed and we will end up using more concentrates to compensate for this, which probably isn’t brilliant for the environment or my pocket.”

It then impacts Patrick’s ability to get spring malting barley planted early as the sheep will be grazing later into the spring, which could reduce the chances of the grain meeting malting specifications.

The new rules around providing a lie-back for animals grazing cover crops is also an issue. Patrick would like to see this revisited by the Department.

Rather than a blanket hard-set rule, he would like to see some leniency where lower stocking rates are used for grazing or perhaps an agreement that animals can be grazed without buffers or a lie-back as long as poaching is avoided over winter.

This can help to promote co-operation between tillage and livestock farmers, something that was starting to happen regarding cover crops before these rules were introduced.

Tony is very experienced in growing high-quality maize and triticale for the livestock sector, particularly dairy farmers.

“It’s all about quality, everyone wants quality and when a quality feed is provided, price is never an issue.”

Tony remarked, “When do you get tillage farmers talking about feeding cows?” – despite the fact that the forage crops they grow will end up doing just that.

Tillage farmers have to grow their crops to meet the needs of their customers; this will ensure that the crop is worth the price being paid for it so that everyone is happy when a deal is done.

This point was re-emphasised by John Martin from Centenary Co-op later in the day.

He said many farmers in his area are successfully working together to grow forage crops, but they have trust in each other that the best crop possible will be produced and the livestock farmer is paying the tillage farmer in regular instalments throughout the year,

Winter months

Tony also explained that a forage crop does not have to be the main crop grown in a field in a given year like wholecrop wheat or maize.

He grows triticale from September to April before cutting it for silage.

This gives him the benefits of a cover crop over the winter months, while also allowing him to grow three cash crops in the space of two years.

A survey conducted during Tillage Day revealed that 60% of attendees have planted Barley Yellow Dwarf Virus (BYDV) tolerant or resistant winter barley varieties this year.

This corresponds to 44% of available winter barley seed belonging to BYDV tolerant or resistant varieties.

All three farmers on the panel discussion agreed that they see the benefits of using them.

Patrick said “I’m very happy with them and I wouldn’t go back to varieties without tolerance.”

He has seen some of his winter barley crops get infected with BYDV in the past couple of years, but it has not significantly affected the yield of these tolerant varieties. It has worked for him so far, and his crop yielded 3.9t/ac this year, a very good yield in what was a poor year for winter barley.

Break crop

He explained that he is trying to make sure that he grows winter barley after a break crop rather than after another barley crop.

These two cultural control measures, in addition to delayed planting in the autumn, have put Patrick in the position where he feels confident that an aphicide is not required.

However, he realises that with the exceptionally mild weather over the past month, chemical control of aphids may still be required this year.

However, the tolerant varieties give peace-of-mind and Patrick has not decided whether he will apply one in the coming weeks or not. If he had planted a non-tolerant variety, there would be no question and at least one aphicide would be applied.

First variety

Tim O’Donovan, president of the Irish Seed Trade Association, told attendees later in the day that BYDV tolerance was discovered in barley as far back as the 1960s in Ethiopia, however it took until 2019 for the first variety to hit the market in Ireland.

Farmers often ask when will we see this tolerance become available for other crops.

Tim explained that: “We can see it coming in winter wheat and spring barley, but it’s five or 10 years away at least.”