A farming view from Poland

Tim Bergin, a Dubliner, who is farming in Poland close to the Baltic sea joins Michael Hennessy on this week’s Tillage Edge podcast to explain his experience of farming there.

Tim moved to Poland in 2002 and is now farming close to 1,200 ha of sandy loam soils.  The total rainfall in the area is similar to Ireland but it’s drier than he would like in April and May.

Tim grows a mix of winter wheat, oilseed rape and potatoes as his main crops on the farm.  Farm yields of potatoes and oilseed rape are similar or higher than Ireland and winter wheats are lower yielding, at 8 t/ha, but this is milling quality.

Potatoes are mostly grown for processing for making chips for McDonalds (variety Russet Burbank) and Tim would like to start growing more seed as it’s a good area for high quality production. He runs a min-till system with four full time staff and maintains that his machinery outlay is smaller than a similar farm in Ireland, however he still thinks the costs are too high.

The Tillage Edge podcast will get an update from Tim later in the year to see how farming is going in his area.

For more episodes and information from the Tillage Edge podcast go to: www.teagasc.ie/thetillageedge

 And don’t forget to register for the Teagasc monthly crop agronomy webinars with the next one on May 4th.  Go to Tillage Month for more information.

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