Vincent Macken - August 2024

‘A season of two halves and why patience is vital’

The 2023/24 season could best be described as the season of two halves. We don’t need reminding of how difficult it was last autumn to establish winter crops, how poor the survival rate was (I too ended up replanting some of my winter wheat ground) and the horrendous wet spring which led us to a record late planting of spring crops.

As mentioned in my last article in May, it was astonishing how much work was done in a short space of time when ground finally dried out.

It also reiterated that patience is essential when sowing late, particularly when min-tilling as I am, to make sure you plant into the best seedbed possible as the season is so short.
Nature obliged ever since with a cool, moist, slow growing season which has given my spring barley and beans every chance of producing a decent yield if the weather comes right for harvesting.

It will be the last days of August before the barley is ready and three weeks later for the beans which look promising.

At time of writing, I have my oilseed rape harvested which didn’t cope well with the year and yielded poorly around 1 t/acre. I have started cutting winter wheat but moistures are high. I’m estimating it will yield around 3.5 to 4 t/acre which would be reasonable considering the year it has had.

I do intend sowing winter rape as a break crop again for 2025. This will be planted in the coming days giving it a really good start compared to last year.

I am also ready to go after the combine with planting cover crops in the 2025 spring cropping ground, while conscious of the requirement to leave 20-25pc uncultivated for the birds. I make up my own mix of straight phacelia, buckwheat and tillage radish and find these work best for my farm where I am growing cover crops to improve soil structure and mop up nutrients which would otherwise head for the river Boyne.

If planting runs late this year, as looks likely, I will add some oats to the mixture to get some decent cover into the autumn. I find it confusing at this time of the year to keep up with the rules and also concentrate on saving the harvest.

Remembering and co-ordinating cultivation of stubble, incorporation of straw, sowing of cover crops, 4m cover crop buffer zones when 3m is normal, not sowing areas for the birds, asking neighbours to clear straw, geotagging photos of bales before they clear them and all with deadlines of 10 days and 14 days, and September 15 is difficult at such a stressful time of the year.

Maybe some of the rules could be revisited and simplified to help avoid mistakes.
Yes, I was in the Straw Incorporation Measure (SIM) at the maximum 40 ha, and yes I have considered putting some of the spring barley into the new baling assistance payment. However, the weather, price of straw, and demand, will determine my appetite for this in a few weeks’ time.

As a Signpost farm, I am very happy with the SIM as it helps me at a busy time of the year with limited help on the farm not having to deal with additional straw when my neighbours requirements are sorted out, but it also returns nutrients and carbon to my soil, lowering my chemical fertiliser bill and my farm’s carbon footprint.

Finally, I also made the deadline of August 31 to have my ACRES 2 riparian buffer zones sown as part of my commitment to improving water quality on the farm.