Tom Tierney - October 2024

With no winter barley this year due to the wet autumn, my 2024 harvest finally kicked off late with winter oilseed rape in the early days of August.

Back in January I walked the crop with my Teagasc advisor and a decision was made based on the GAI and plant population to minimise input spend, to optimise margin return.

Inputs were reduced to about two-thirds of normal but it still managed to return a satisfactory yield of 1.14t/ac at 12pc moisture. I chopped the straw even though it was not included in the Straw Incorporation Measure (SIM) due to being at the maximum 40ha payment limit without it.

Oilseed rape straw is valuable at returning carbon and nutrients back to the soil and improving soil biology, but it has no real value outside the farm gate for bedding or feed.

I was glad Minister McConalogue retained the SIM and created a new Baling Assistance Payment (BAP) scheme to run in conjunction, to suit the needs of both tillage and livestock farmers in the face of an impending fodder crisis.

I then harvested the small area of winter wheat which had survived replanting. Somehow it yielded 3.3t/ac despite the gaping holes in the crop. Again, fertiliser inputs were reduced and fungicides reduced to a two-spray programme to optimise returns.

Finally, we started into the spring barley. Variety Planet was sown late on April 22 and was harvested on August 30. It yielded 3t/ac at 16pc moisture, with a protein of 9.5-9.7pc and a KPH of 64.3. This passed for malting when delivered to Daltons in Athy for brewing.

Variety Gangway was harvested on September 5. This was grown as feed barley. It yielded extremely well — I would estimate at around 3.5t/ac. This is welcome as much of the ground was sown twice, where winter wheat and rye failed incurring higher costs than normal.

However I did use compost to replace chemical N, P and K and applied just 52 units/ac liquid N and reduced fungicide use. Straw yield was exceptional at nine 4x4 round bales/ac, but it is also worth remembering the value of crop rotations as it followed winter oilseed rape.

Beans seem to be another week from harvest yet and while the crops look to have good pod numbers, it remains to be seen how they’ll yield or how the nutrition trials may perform.

Meanwhile, I was fortunate to visit North Rhine-Westfalia (NRW) region as part of an i2 Connect project to evaluate an EIP addressing falling numbers of insect fauna and bird species on tillage land. The biggest difference I observed between Germany and Ireland was the distinct lack of field hedgerows. Tillage fields there were only interspersed with blocks of woodland.

The project trialled specific measures to promote insects with the aim of supporting typical bird species, and to establish wildlife corridors between these blocks. Some of these measures involved planting multi-species flowering long-term crop corridors in strategic locations.

Measures implemented were for a minimum of five years and participant farmers were receiving around €1,200/ha/year for income foregone and cost of creating and maintaining the measures.

Having seen the results, I think we have an opportunity in the next CAP reform to promote similar wildlife corridors and other eco-friendly ideas such as growing summer-flowering cover crops and low-GHG emission crop establishment techniques such as no-till here in Ireland.