The Tillage Edge

Ciarán Collins and Shay Phelan, both Tillage Specialists in Teagasc, joined Michael Hennessy on the latest Tillage Edge podcast to discuss how crops have developed over the season and to look forward to the harvest.     They both touched on the major features of the season and pointed to the generally low disease pressure this year and agree that, given where crops are at the moment, there is exce...

Grassweeds in tillage crops are becoming more common but John Mahon,Teagasc ECT advisor, is on this week’s episode of the Tillage Edge podcast and says that any grass weed population can be successfully managed.     John says farmers should take a zero tolerance approach to weeds such as blackgrass and ryegrass as these weeds are hugely prolific seed producers and are hard to eliminate if they bec...

This year BYDV is evident in both winter and spring crops despite many farmers’ best efforts trying to control aphids which spread the virus.     On this week’s Tillage Edge podcast, Dr Louise McNamara, an entomologist from Teagasc, Oak Park, Carlow discussed the virus spread and what makes this year different to other years.   Yield reduction in crops is likely where there is a large BYDV infecti...

Potato blight can be every bit as damaging in 2022 as it was in 1845. Blight is a devastating organism but relatively predictable as it needs specific conditions to develop during the growing season. This week’s Tillage Edge podcast is joined by Dr Stephen Kildea, a researcher in Teagasc and Klara Finkele, Head of Agricultural Meteorology at Met Éireann, to discuss how the potato blight forecastin...

‘A wet and windy May fills the barn with corn and hay’ is a saying that all growers are aware of and hope will come true this year. However, wet conditions in May bring their own problems with increased foliar diseases and Dr. Steven Kildea joined the Tillage Edge podcast this week to discuss the progress of disease control in crops so far this year Steven said that despite commercial crops lookin...

Ireland will host the World Potato Congress on May 30th to June 2nd in the RDS, Dublin and this week’s Tillage Edge podcast previews the event with Liam Glennon of the Irish Potato Federation and Denis Griffin from Teagasc who are the main drivers in organising the congress. A worldwide audience is expected with delegates coming from Australia, America, Africa and across Asia. The congress will ha...

Phelim Dolan from Comex McKinnon joined the Tillage Edge podcast this week to talk about the current grain market and the prospects for the coming months. Phelim talks about the pressures on grain supply before the war in Ukraine started and the current effect of the war on prices now. Looking forward, Phelim pointed to the crisis in some sectors due to very expensive grain and a strong possibilit...

Irish farmer in Romania, Jim McCarthy, re-joins Michael Hennessy on the Tillage Edge podcast this week to discuss the continued effects of the Ukrainian conflict on the local people in Romania and also on his farm business there. Jim first explained that his efforts in helping refugees has decreased due to the superb organisation and support coming from the Romanian government. Jim has good inform...

The latest Tillage Edge podcast catches up again with Tim Bergin who is a Dubliner farming in north Poland. Tim talks about how the conflict in Ukraine has affected his business and the locality. Despite being over 1,000 km from the Ukraine border, there are substantial numbers of Ukrainians in the locality and Tim commented that the Polish government is doing an excellent job catering for these d...

Crops are racing through their growth stages and many crops require critical inputs to ensure they reach their yield potential. Ciarán Collins and Shay Phelan, who are both Tillage Specialists in Teagasc, joined the Tillage Edge podcast this week to discuss the crop management actions needed on farms in the coming weeks. Ciarán commented that winter barley is at the ideal growth stage to apply a g...

Precision placement of fertilisers is critical to ensure farmers get the maximum returns and on this week’s episode of the Tillage Edge podcast, Craig England, a Precision Ag and Machine Control Specialist working with Topcon, chats about the extra accuracy a GPS enabled fertiliser spreader can bring to spreading fertilisers. Craig explained how the GPS spreaders can accurately turn on and off the...

Eoin Lyons, the Teagasc Boortmalt joint program advisor, joined this week’s Tillage Edge podcast to discuss the management of malting barley over the coming weeks. Spring malting barley is one of the biggest cereal crops in Ireland and getting the correct management of the crop in the early stages of growth is critical to achieving the required specs. Eoin recommends applying a lower rate of nitro...

Teagasc tillage specialists, Ciarán Collins and Shay Phelan, joined Michael Hennessy on this week’s podcast to discuss the new Tillage Incentive Scheme and what’s in it for tillage farmers. The specialists also discussed areas to watch out for when ploughing grassland for tillage crops this year. Shay pointed out that the scheme isn’t attractive to specialised tillage farmers on their own ground (...

Tom Barry, a Cork farmer near Mallow, chats to Michael Hennessy on this week’s Tillage Edge podcast about applying pig slurry to growing winter crops. Tom has been applying slurries to his land for over 20 years and says the benefits are twofold. “I can reduce costs by €150/ac or more and increase yields by three quarters of a ton per acre,” said Tom. Michael McCarthy, Tom’s Teagasc tillage adviso...

Dr Sarah Cook, a weed expert in ADAS in the UK joined Michael Hennessy on this week’s Tillage Edge podcast to discuss blackgrass and best ways to control the weed by exploiting the weed’s weaknesses. She highlighted some simple cultural control methods like ploughing, later sowing and competitive crops that will help with control. Sarah said blackgrass can develop herbicide resistance quickly as i...

Jim McCarthy, who is farming in Romania, sixty kilometres from the Ukraine border, chats to the Tillage Edge this week about the impacts of the Ukraine war on his family and business. Jim discusses the immediate efforts of his staff who are helping Ukrainian refugees arriving at the border to travel to safety outside Ukraine. He chatted about the effects of changes to grain price and input costs a...

Both winter oilseed rape and winter barley have started to grow and many farmers are either getting back into fields or are anxiously waiting for soils to dry out. On this week’s Tillage Edge podcast, Michael Hennessy speaks to Ciaran Collins and Shay Phelan, Teagasc tillage specialists, about the progress of the main winter crops and the most urgent jobs to be completed. Ciaran Collins talked abo...

More farmers are investing in GPS systems but navigating the different systems can be challenging. This is the first in a series of podcasts on the Tillage Edge exploring the area of precision technology on farms. Craig England, a Precision Ag and Machine Control Specialist working for Topcon Positioning Ireland, joined Michael Hennessy to go through the requirements for a tillage farmer getting s...

This week’s Tillage Edge podcast continues the series looking at farmers who are working closely with Teagasc in the Signpost Farms programme and other initiatives. Don Somers, a farmer in Wexford, and his advisor John Pettit, joined Michael Hennessy to discuss Don’s farm practice. Don has costed out various fertiliser practices and has identified that changing to protected urea on winter crops wi...

This week’s Tillage Edge podcast revisits the questions and answers from the Malting Barley Webinar which was held on February 10th. A panel of experts from Teagasc, Boortmalt and Teagasc, as well as farmers, answered questions that were asked by attendee farmers during the webinar. The session covers nitrogen applications for this season, how cover crops can be incorporated into malting barley pr...

This week, the Tillage Edge podcast catches up with the questions and answers from the Crops Webinar on CAP23 which was held on February 3rd. A panel of experts from the Department of Agriculture and Marine, Teagasc and a farmer answer questions that were asked by farmers during the webinar. The session covers areas such as partnerships, young farmers, eligible crops, entitlement values and much m...

This week the Tillage Edge chats to Eoin Lyons, the Teagasc Boortmalt Joint Programme Advisor, who explains why it is critical that tillage farmers get a nutrient management plan completed for 2022. Eoin goes through the process of creating a nutrient management plan and the time involved and he says where a farm is already mapped in the NMP online system, then a nutrient management plan could be...

This week, the Tillage Edge podcast links in with the National Tillage Conference webinar which covered a number of areas to help farmers utilise fertiliser more efficiently and also addressed where farmers can reduce fertiliser inputs. The podcast covers the excellent question and answer sections which cover the main topics from the webinar. Dr. David Wall, Dr. Richie Hackett and Dermot Forristal...

This week’s Tillage Edge podcast chats to John Mahon who has been working in various roles in Irish agriculture over the past thirty years and John gives his perspective of conservation agriculture and grass weed control as it stands in the industry today. He points out that there are a number of areas to be concerned about - especially the protection of existing herbicides and dealing with herbic...

In the first Tillage Edge podcast for 2022, Michael Hennessy talks to Will Stokes, a tillage farmer in Tipperary, who is participating in the Signpost Farm programme. Will and his Teagasc advisor, Conor Kavanagh, discuss how Will is making changes on his farm, particularly around caring for the soils. Will is focused on building soil reserves of P & K and as part of that imports organic manure...