Weather

The last week has been extraordinary weather for many, with heavy snow in many counties and extremely hard frost. Anywhere those many inches of snow have fallen will see it thaw in the coming days, and land will be extremely wet.

Before snow fell, some had been taking advantage of the frost and getting some ploughing and hedge cutting done in fields before ground thawed out.

Where there is no snow, some may have rolled cover crops. Temperatures are to rise from Friday morning, so the opportunity to do this may have passed this time. Rolling these crops in hard frost breaks the stem and kills the plant.

Next week looks to be dry and bright, so there should be an opportunity for land to soak and dry in the coming days.

Planning

There is plenty of planning to be done. Farmers should make sure they have last year’s crop records complete for the Department and the Irish Grain Assurance Scheme.

Make sure that you have a fertiliser plan completed as well so that you know what fertiliser you need if you see a price that you would like to sell at. It is also important to estimate the costs of growing your crops for the year ahead.

Walk crops: When the frost thaws and the snow melts it might be a time to get out and walk crops and see what may need attention. Check where crops are performing well or are struggling.

Pull some oilseed rape leaves and place them in a bag in a warm room to see if any light leaf spot develops in a few days. If there is disease there it will have white spores. It should be treated with a fungicide like prothioconazole.

Events

There are plenty of events coming up around the country. Kerry will host its inaugural tillage conference at the Ballyroe Heights Hotel, Tralee, on Thursday, 16 January, kicking off at 2pm. There will be refreshments beforehand.

Speakers on the day include Teagasc’s Ciarán Collins on spring cereal varieties and crop margins, Scott Lovell of Goldcrop on plant protection products and John O’Loughlin and John Corbett of Grassland Agro on fertiliser and spreading.

Tony Markey of ADM will finish off the presentations with a run down on grain markets. There will be a panel discussion with all speakers and plenty of time for questions.

The Dairygold Tillage Conference will take place on Friday 17 January. Trade stands can be viewed from 1pm and the conference kicks off at 2pm. This year’s theme is “Cultivating Innovation” and focusing on evolving cereal crop establishment techniques.

Teagasc’s Dermot Forristal will give a presentation based on his experience with different establishment systems and Ciarán Collins will talk on the challenges of different systems and how there is not one system for all.

There will be a farmer discussion panel with Ger O’Meara, Pat Collins, Michael McCarthy and Gordon O’Sullivan. As always there will be refreshments and a raffle for all in attendance.