BETTER farms equally hit by poor field conditions

The Teagasc BETTER Farm programme has been demonstrating areas of precision farming across the three host farms – those of John Collins in Waterford, Kevin Nolan in Carlow and Derek Keeling in Dublin.

While technology plays a part on all three farms, other areas such as crop planning, crop monitoring and nutrition planning are also important parts of “precision farming” on the farms.

Like all other farms in the country, little field work has been carried out on the farms due to the weather and crops are behind where they would normally be at this time of year.

Work is backing up so the use of contractors, etc, may well be needed over the coming weeks.

Kevin is happy with the progress of his crops despite the fact that some of them were relatively late planted. Wheat and barley have received all their Ps and Ks, either in the form of organic manures or chemical fertiliser. Early in the year, Kevin completed his fertiliser plan for the year with this Teagasc adviser Phelim McDonald.

Kevin believes that this is a vital piece of information, especially when using organic manures. He hopes to complete the main split of nitrogen on crops by mid-April, as most crops are generally at GS30.

Spring crops will consist of barley and possibly oats, although it is now very late for spring oats. The time for planting spring beans has now passed as he doesn’t want to have to harvest beans late into the autumn as this can have a knock-on effect for planting next season’s crops.

Organic manures

A contractor will be used to spread all the organic manures so that he can concentrate on his own work. Kevin is aware that, while there is a lot of work to be done, it is important that he be realistic in what he can do as working excessive hours to try to catch up is not safe.

Kevin is planning to move to liquid fertiliser for his nitrogen requirements as he feels that this is more accurate on the 30m tramlines. He has had some issues spreading solid fertiliser 30m previously so this should help to reduce unevenness in crops. Kevin is also looking to upgrade his sprayer to 36m via the TAMS as this will increase output further.

John Collins has already sprayed his oilseed rape with fungicide for light leaf spot control and the final fertiliser will be applied shortly.

Organic manures also play an important role in the nutrition of John Collins’ crops, so nutrition planning is one of the most important jobs that he completes early each year. John has recently been trained up on the new Teagasc nutrient management planning online system which helps him to plan his fertiliser requirements for each crop based on a number on factors including crop choice, rotation and the use of organic manures.

John can accurately calculate the needs of each crop and can then plan how much each crop should receive. He will also use the N sensor mounted on the tractor cab to refine the nitrogen requirement when travelling through the crops.

John can clearly see the benefit from fertiliser planning early in the season for accurate crop nutrition and it also serves as a record keeping tool for cross-compliance purposes.

John reckons that crops are, in general, well behind last year. He is currently trying to finish off weed control on winter wheat and including CCC on thin crops to try to manipulate tiller numbers. Winter barley is up to date, with fertiliser applied to most fields. However, there are still some wetter fields which must wait for conditions to improve before they can receive their final nitrogen.

Oilseed rape has received a fungicide for light leaf spot and the final application of fertiliser will be applied soon.

Spring cropping will consist of maize and oats. Spring barley has been dropped as it didn’t fit into John’s work schedule last year. While some ploughing has been done, John hopes to avail of some casual labour and or a contractor to finish off the ploughing so he can get on with other work.

Derek Keeling still has to get the spring ploughing done but he is prepared to wait for good ground conditions to help achieve good seedbeds.

Crops are about a fortnight behind normal, according to Derek Keeling. Most of the crops have come through the winter and spring fine but about 5% have water damage where water lay. The wheat and barley were sown in good conditions and this has definitely helped. Most of the crops were rolled at sowing and this has resulted in little or no slug damage. There is the odd wheel track but nothing to worry about.

Most crops received an autumn herbicide although some wheat still needs attention. All crops have received their base dressing of fertiliser, which consisted mainly of 9:8:22 + S. Derek had hoped to split the main application of nitrogen into two splits of 50kg N/ha each, with the first split in early April to reduce the risk of losses. However, he has now decided to put it out in one application to save on work. The final split on barley will be applied by GS31.

This is a high-yielding farm so Derek will use the extra allowance in the nitrates directive to feed the crop. Derek completes a fertiliser plan each year as he believes in feeding the crop for yield. Regular soil testing is carried out to ensure that he uses enough fertiliser to replace what the crops remove. Derek’s father, Derek Snr, has soil test records as far back as the 1970s and yield records for the last 10-15 years so they can easily see trends emerging in fields. Derek also uses organic manures on the farm and these are targeted at the fields which are the lowest in P and K.

Ploughing for spring planting hasn’t started yet but Derek isn’t panicking. A good seedbed is most important when sowing in April so he is prepared to wait until soil conditions are suitable for sowing.