Harvest

The cereal harvest continues for some, but most people have now wrapped up or are wrapping up and the good weather this week has made it easier to get straw baled. Place a value on your straw and don’t undersell it.

It will be the profit on many farms this year. You will get €100/ac from the Straw Incorporation Measure and have the cost of turning, baling and transport if selling bales, so you should at least be getting €100/ac in profit selling straw.

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Keep an eye on spring wheat if it is not cut and get it harvested in good weather where possible to avoid issues with sprouting later on.

Oilseed rape

It’s an ideal time to plant oilseed rape with the early harvest and good weather. Oilseed rape off to a good start will be a help over winter if pigeons come into the crop.

The tillage pages cover oilseed rape this week and on this week’s Tillage Podcast we speak to John Dunne of Goldcrop about the crop. You should order your seed as soon as possible.

The break crop will reduce take-all risk in the next crop, help the next crop’s yield and allow you to use different chemistry to control weeds which can be a big help where grass weeds are an issue.

Stubble cultivation

A reminder that stubbles going into winter cropping do not need to be cultivated and count towards the 20-25% of uncultivated cereal stubbles on your farm.

If you have blackgrass, soft, rye or meadow brome on your farm then you should not cultivate this land. Rules state that this should be rolled to promote seed to soil contact and help weeds to germinate. You need an adviser to confirm that you have a grass weed problem.

Beans

Beans are being harvested already with early-sown crops being harvested or coming near harvesting. Many crops look likely to be ready in the month of August or early September. Usually bean stubbles do not have to be cultivated as they are harvested after 15 September. Many of these fields will go into a winter crop and so do not need to be cultivated.

However, as the bean stalks will be chopped in most cases it may be a good idea to incorporate this into the ground to avoid ploughing down a layer of chopped stalks in a few weeks’ time.

Cropping plan

As harvest starts to wrap up try and get a cropping plan in place. Many of you will have plans in place already with catch crops in and oilseed rape going in. Weather will impact plans, but get a plan in place and see what varieties you want to grow and order winter seed where possible.

Winter cereal recommended lists will be out in September from the Department of Agriculture.