Evaluating different establishment systems for malting barley

The Teagasc/Boortmalt joint programme undertook a demonstration to evaluate the performance of different establishment systems in a 2022 malting barley crop.

With an increased interest in non-plough systems for the establishment of malting barley – driven by the cost and time involved with ploughing and the soil structure benefits that non-plough systems bring, the Teagasc/Boortmalt joint programme undertook a demonstration to evaluate the performance of different establishment systems in a 2022 malting barley crop.

Speaking at the recent National Malting Barley Conference, Eoin Lyons, a Teagasc tillage advisor in Tinahely and former advisor on the programme, presented the results of the demonstration, which took place on John Crowley’s farm in Co. Wexford.

“What we were trying to achieve as part of this demonstration was to evaluate the performance of different establishment systems in the 2022 malting barley crop. We had three systems – plough, min-till and no-till – and we were looking at the performance of them during the year,”

The demonstration began in the autumn of 2021, with the establishment of a catch/cover crop to evaluate the performance of a barley crop sown subsequently in each cover crop treatment area. Four different treatments were involved – three were sown with forage rape and leafy turnip and one was left unsown as a control to allow for natural cover generation. The first treatment was sown on August 26^th, with slurry applied. At the same sowing date, another section was sown with no slurry. A further section of the field was sown on September 15^th, again with no slurry, and the final section was left unsown.

“What we were trying to achieve from that was with the slurry applied, we would have an excellent cover crop. We would have an average type cover crop with an August sowing date, with no slurry. A later sowing date to give our poor establishment cover crop and no cover crop to see the performance of that,” Eoin explained. These results are reflected in the fresh weight performance of each cover crop, as presented in table 1 below.

Table 1: Fresh weight performance of the catch crop under the four treatments

Establishment systems

In the spring of 2022, the demonstration then began to focus on how differing establishment methods effected the performance of malting barley. On March 25^th, Planet was sown at 185kg/ha across the three establishment methods – plough/till/sow, min-till and no-till. Typically, non-plough systems would be sown later than plough systems, but as ground conditions were excellent in the spring of 2022, all three were sown on the same day. The catch crops had been terminated five weeks prior to sowing.

Presenting the results, Eoin said: “Because this was a demo out in the field, we couldn’t really get an accurate determination of what yield was going to be so our best metric to decide how the different systems performed was to firstly do a plant count and then move on to our ear number from there.”

Table 2: Plant number and ear counts from the Teagasc/Boortmalt demonstration

On plant numbers, he said: “Our plough-based system was very consistent across each catch crop treatment - which we would expect - establishing 320 plants/m2, which was an excellent establishment rate. But last spring was a very good spring, so establishment rates were very good.”

Establishment rates were quite similar for the min-till treatment, but plant counts did drop off when sown in poor and no catch crop areas. This was expected, Eoin explained, as the ground with poor catch crop cover over the winter was more exposed to rainfall and was slightly more compact.

When the min-till establishment method was used, plant counts of 270m2 were recorded for both the good and average catch crop treatment, which is back from the other methods, but is still an adequate number of plants to establish. However, for the treatments with no catch crop to offer soil protection (poor and no catch crop), Eoin noted that “there was a big tail off” with just 240 and 180 plants/m2, respectively, established.

The demo indicated that ear numbers/m2 were largely similar for both the plough-based and min-till treatments, with 1,100 ears/m2 established in all treatments apart for the min-till, no catch crop, which produced 1,050 ears/m2. However, ear numbers/m2 were much reduced for the no-till system across all catch crop treatments. Although the crop sown into the good and average catch crop min-till scenario produced 270 plants/m2, they only produced 650 ears/m2.

On this, he said: “Where we had 270 plants/m2 established, it didn’t tiller as much as we’d like and there was a big tail of in terms of ear numbers – nearly half the crop we had compared to the others (plough and min-till).

“The reason for that, it was quite a thin crop, there was a lot of light getting down to the base of the crop and we had a lot of annual meadow grass and weeds coming and they were soaking up the nutrients and it wasn’t available for barley crop in order to tiller and in order to produce yield.”

Commenting on the differences witnessed between the three establishment methods, Eoin said:

“The plough-based system had consistent performance across the field. The min-till system had slightly poorer performance where there was no cover crop, with higher levels of disease. That would stand to reason, as you have volunteers coming through from the previous crop that in a plough-based system would have been buried, but in the min-till they would have been left on top.

“The no-till system had adequate establishment and poor tillering and really that is down to the weed pressure that was there. There was a lot of annual meadow grass coming in soaking up those nutrients and it was taking from the crop.”

Conclusions

Eoin concluded that there was virtually no difference between the plough and min-till system in 2022 - an excellent growing year, which may have been a bit forgiving when the establishment methods were compared. However, he noted that an increased focus on integrated pest management is required in non-plough systems, as disease pressure was higher.

As part of the demonstration, catch crops were terminated five weeks before drilling to reduce the number of volunteers, diseases and aphids being carried through. However, this practice had an impact on the performance of the min-till system, as 5-6 weeks of catch crop growth were lost, thus reducing the friability of the soil and leading to slightly higher levels of rain-caused compaction.

Commenting on the long-term potential of no-till establishment systems, Eoin said that the demonstration was a little hard in that a full crop was expected to be produced in its first year, adding: “We know that if you are going direct drilling, it is a whole system approach. It is bringing in rotation and it is going to take a long number of years for that soil to get used to a no-till system”.

The demo will be repeated this spring, with three crop establishment methods – plough, min-till and direct drill. The catch crops grown will also remain in place for longer to reduce surface compaction in the weeks before sowing.