Harvesting begins in broken weather

The winter barley harvest kicked off on Friday in Meath, and continued in glorious conditions on Saturday before showers stopped progress on Sunday.

Some 120ac were cut, mostly heavier land planted two weeks earlier than the rest of the barley last autumn. Eamonn does not have exact yield figures yet, but thinks it is coming in at around 4t/ac.

The barley is very good quality, with the six-row hybrid Belfry bushelling in the 60s, while the two-row KWS Tardis is between 66 and 68kph. Eamonn is happy that the Belfry is finished as it was starting to break down. The KWS Tardis is not quite as bad, but the rain over the past few days may result in deterioration.

Moisture content was quite good, at 18% to 19% on Friday, falling to 16% on Saturday.

Some straw was baled, yielding 4.5 large squares bales per acre, equivalent to 11 round bales per acre. The winter oilseed rape has all been sprayed off. It looks like a nice but not record-breaking crop, with some small patches beginning to lean over in fertiliser overlaps.

The winter wheat looks good, but Eamonn says it will be interesting to see if it will live up to its yield potential considering the wet weather over the past couple of weeks.

Crows are starting to attack the wheat, and Eamonn says they proved a challenge in the winter barley too.

When last speaking to Eamonn, he was unsure if a T2 spray would be applied to the spring barley. With wet weather forecasted, he decided to apply a cheap and cheerful mix of Trinity 250 (0.5l/ha) and Amistar (0.5l/ha).

While it won’t break any records, the crop has thickened up in the past few weeks.

Attention is now starting to turn to cover crops following winter barley. He will look to avoid brassicas in mixes, and hopes that early drilling, if straw can be cleared, can lead to good establishment and a large biomass.

There is some winter barley ready to cut in Derry, but the broken weather has not allowed Alistair to make a start yet.

While the Valerie winter barley, which has looked poor all year, is ready to harvest, the rest of the barley is two to three weeks away. Alistair says the 10-way mix looks fantastic and he will definitely use variety mixes again.

There are a few small bits lodged but nothing to worry about.

Throughout all of his crops, he says the min-till fields are performing on par or better than the ploughed fields, which is leading him to think that he will use this establishment system more widely this autumn.

The winter oilseed rape was sprayed off this week, and Alistair also applied Pod-Stik. The winter wheat looks OK. It will probably be another month before it’s ripe.

The spring beans are flying it, with lots of heat and moisture in the ground. No fungicide has been applied and Alistair intends to keep it this way.

He sees it as a low-cost soil conditioner which should help to alleviate soil compaction. These beans will be wholecropped.

The winter rye was wholecropped recently. The grains had filled well, which led to yields of between 16 and 20t/ac, averaging 18t/ac.

It was a very good, uniform crop.

Alistair plans to disc the stubbles this week and plant a mixture of peas, oats, red clover, white clover and grass. This will be wholecropped at the end of September, before the fields are left in grass for at least three years. Alistair also has some peas and oats that will be harvested for silage next month.

More grass silage has also been cut on the farm. Every cut has exceeded expectations so far.

Alistair plans to only spread a small bit of nitrogen for subsequent silage cuts due to the large amounts already ensiled.

The harvest has not yet begun at Kildalton College, but Damien says the winter barley is in need of cutting as it is starting to brackle. The wind and rain will not help this but there is no lodging so far.

The winter oilseed rape was desiccated last week with Roundup Biactive. The crop has stood up well so far and has good yield potential.

The Graham winter wheat is standing well but it has lost all of its green leaf area already.

Damien says that this will lead to an earlier harvest than is ideal. Some of the varieties in the Department of Agriculture winter wheat trial still have some green colour in them.

Some varieties are lodged, but not to the extent that the data on these plots is lost.

The winter oats are still standing and have remained clean of disease. Damien says the oats are a reasonable crop.

Low levels of ramularia have started to become visible in the spring barley. While the commercial Geraldine is still standing strong, some varieties on trial are becoming tossed with the strong wind and heavy rain.

Early-drilled spring oats have no green leaf left while the mid-April planted oats are still green, and are shorter. Both crops are clean and standing well.

The spring wheat received a T3 of Prosaro (1l/ha) on 26 June and still remains clean.

Damien is not expecting a high yield from his spring beans. He says the drought hit them hard, causing flowers to abort on the upper half of the stems. There are between 10 and 12 pods on each plant. They received a T2 of Elatus Era.

Finally, the maize is in great condition. The Calaris herbicide did a great job in cleaning up weeds.

The open maize is about waist-high, but the covered trial plots are nearly 2ft taller than this.