Would I make a move to strip-till?

In the book, Warrenstown Remembered there’s a lovely black and white photograph from 1962 captioned ‘The Boys hit Dublin’. It is a picture of a group of Warrenstown students from that year, somewhere in the city centre, probably about to go on a tear. In keeping with the period, all the lads wear jackets and most wear ties, in various states of dishevelment.

But there is one student who very clearly stands out as a striking figure. He’s immaculately turned out in a smart, well-cut, buttoned-up suit complete with white shirt and stripy tie. His handsome poise is confident and smiling and he’s holding a cigarette, the only one to do so. I’d say the girls quickly singled him out as the one to go for with the twinkle in his eye.

It is an accurate portrayal of the man he was to become. John Sheridan always stood out from the crowd. His agricultural education in Warrenstown served him well and he had happy memories of cycling the 20 or so miles home to Kilberry, Navan at the weekends.

John, with his brother Michael, went on to build a large tillage farming business of which potato growing was the central part and continually expanded their operations.

Over the years he progressed from employing potato pickers to a present day, four row self-propelled harvester that would lift more in two hours than 40 people would do in a week.

But Meath, even Ireland, wasn’t big enough to contain John, as he also farmed on the other side of the world. But Down Under it was with dairy cows and, if I may respectfully add, thank goodness he kept them down there rather than on the ideal tillage soils that are the Kells and Ladestown series in north Meath.

However, unlike many other successful businessmen, John was a friendly, interested and engaging character, who was a pleasure to meet and with time to talk. I clearly remember the first time I met him, on a Sunday afternoon auction viewing in Mountainstown, over 30 years ago.

I won’t claim to have known John well but I have watched with respect and admiration from a distance.

Alas, failing health dogged John’s final years. But he stoically soldiered on and while he had delegated control of the business to the next generation, he was still the boss.

Although ill this springtime, John made it his business to see how potato planting was progressing in the fields. On the eve of the winter barley harvest, this grand old man of Irish tillage farming slipped away, a good five years before his time.

But he leaves a remarkable legacy and a great family, who will keep the business at the forefront of Irish tillage farming for the years to come. John Sheridan, gentleman and farmer, rest in peace.

Waiting for beans

Kellys of Borris recently held a super field day for Horsch machinery. Strip-till has long interested me but would I switch? Only if it offered greater establishment security in a wet autumn than our present Horsch-based min-till system, which I think is unlikely. Nonetheless, I’ve a strip-till Horch Focus TD coming for a demo shortly. But there’s a problem - the beans have to be harvested off the field first. Someone remarked to agronomist Stephen McCabe that beans are a six-month crop which means a harvest date of 23 October for me and that could happen. Besides combining in November is not part of the plan.

The Department of Agriculture wouldn’t be happy though, as I think you are supposed to combine them to qualify for the protein payment. Maybe if I geo-tagged them a picture (they like those) of me cursing like a trooper while unblocking mushy beans out of the combine’s unloading auger, it’d do.