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Tillage farmers all around the country are pushing to make the most of this narrow weather window and make a dent in their autumn sowing campaigns.
We caught up with Donegal From the Tramlines farmer David Moody, who was making reasonable progress with autumn sowing.
Around 157mm of rain fell on David’s farm over the last month, staggering field work. David explains how he had to sow winter barley in less than optimal conditions in order to minimise the risk of having a large spring crop area in 2020.
Spring crops have proven increasingly challenging to harvest in the northwest.
David ploughs ahead of his Amazone one-pass seed drill with two five-furrow Kverneland ploughs, one on no 28 boards while the other is on no 8.
He explains that that combo is well matched, and the ploughs can just about keep ahead of the drill.
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Variety choice
David is sticking to his original cropping plans this autumn. He decided to sow the winter barley variety Valerie (203 kg/ha).
Ground conditions were less than ideal when sowing this variety, so he increased the seeding rate in order to compensate for potential losses.
Next he planted Bazooka (105kg/ha) and Belfry (98kg/ha). David was pleased with how the hybrid six-row varieties performed on his farm this year, despite the challenging weather.
David then moved on to winter oats and sowed the variety Isabel at 175kg/ha. This week, David plans to move on to winter wheat and plans to sow the varieties Graham and Costello at 205kg/ha.
He has an amount of ground rented to a potato farmer who is harvesting the crop this week. David expects conditions to be good enough to sow winter wheat after.
More from David on this week's From the Tramlines in print.
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