The Tillage Edge

Day 1 of the National Crops Forum highlighted important information on varieties, septoria and grain markets which is worth listening to if you missed it the first time around. The new varieties of winter barley, wheat and oats were discussed, as well as the influence of sowing dates on septoria control for the season with John Joe Byrne from the Department of Agriculture and Teagasc’s Stephen Kil...

Hedgerows are a very important resource within our landscape but over-management is an issue on tillage farms according to Dr Catherine Keena, a Countryside Management Specialist in Teagasc who joins Michael Hennessy on this week’s Tillage Edge podcast. Catherine encourages farmers to leave some of the hedgerows unmanaged each year to let plants flower which is good for pollinators, and the result...

Headlands occupy a significant proportion of fields, particularly in an Irish context – for example, a 24 metre headland makes up 50% of the total area on a 4 hectare field. Meanwhile, the increasing size and weight of machinery is a threat to soil structure and its ability to produce crops efficiently is a concern. On this week’s Tillage Edge podcast, Dr Mark Ward joined Michael Hennessy to discu...

On this week’s Tillage Edge Podcast Shay Phelan talks to soil specialist Mark Plunkett about the impact of the rising cost of fertilisers on tillage farms. This increase in prices has led to a renewed interest in the use of organic manures on tillage farms. Mark discusses the value and costs of the different manures available, the practicalities of using them and the crops most likely to benefit t...

On this week’s Tillage Edge Podcast Shay Phelan talks to three advisors around the country for latest on the harvest. Broken weather over the last few weeks has slowed down the progress of the harvest so Shay spoke to Conor Kavanagh in Tipperary, Ciaran Hickey in Enniscorthy and John Brophy in Louth to get a view from their areas. While the harvest has been a stop-start affair so far, some of the...

Cover crops can be useful for many different functions in a field but some farmers see them as an inconvenience both to plant and to manage before the next crop. Richie Hackett, a researcher in Teagasc, Oak Park, Carlow, has been working with cover crops for over 10 years and joined Michael Hennessy on this week’s Tillage Edge podcast to go through some of his findings - especially the advantages...

Many growers are switching between harvesting and planting this month to get their winter oilseed rape planted and on this week’s Tillage Edge, Ciaran Collins, a Tillage Specialist in Teagasc, joins Michael Hennessy to give an insight into the advantages of getting the crop planted in August rather than September. Ciaran points to the increased growth, giving the plant more resilience against pest...

Close to 2,000 farmers signed up to incorporate some or all of their straw this year and on this week’s Tillage Edge podcast, Dermot Forristal joins Michael Hennessy to chat through the main factors to take into consideration when incorporating straw. Dermot explains that depth of incorporation can be quite flexible from 5cm up to 10 cm with good soil to straw contact heeling with a more rapid bre...

The potential of combines or indeed other machinery to spread weeds is now a serious concern for most farmers as grass weeds such as blackgrass, canary grass and wild oats can be easily spread and this is more worrying when these weeds may be herbicide resistant. Dermot Forristal and Brendan Bourke joined Michael Hennessy on this week’s Tillage Edge podcast to discuss machinery hygiene at harvest....

On this week’s episode of the Tillage Edge podcast, Shay Phelan catches up with Tim Bergin who is a Dublin farmer now farming near Slupsk in North West Poland. Tim spoke to the Tillage Edge earlier in the year but Shay got an update on the season so far on his farm and the prospects for the harvest not only in Poland but all across Europe. Tim also spoke about the impact of drought on his potato c...

On this week’s Tillage Edge podcast, Shay Phelan catches up with Teagasc advisors Michael McCarthy in Cork, Conor O’Callaghan in Dublin and Martin McCullough in Donegal to see how crops are looking in their respective areas and the prospects for the upcoming harvest. There were differences in the seasons in the areas with weather having significant effects on crop growth, disease pressure and subs...

Last week, Teagasc broadcast the second in the series of ECT grass weed webinars. This episode focused on blackgrass control and caught up with two ECT focus farmers about their experiences operating a non-plough based system: Gareth Culligan, from Louth, who is practicing a no till system and Michael Grace, from north Kildare, who shared his experiences using a strip till system. Both of these fa...

Factors such the loss of key fungicides and new emerging blight variants are all challenging established blight control practices and on this week’s Tillage Edge podcast, Michael Hennessy was joined by Shay Phelan, a potato Specialist in Oak Park, to discuss blight control in potatoes. The loss of Mancozeb as a key blight control product puts pressure on the existing products and Shay recommends g...

Andy Mahon, the Dubliner who is a farm manager in the east of the England, re-joins Michael Hennessy on this week’s episode of the Tillage Edge with an update on his year so far. The farm has a range of winter and spring crops and Andy has managed the farm to a no-till system over the past few years. Generally planting with a no-till system starts later than conventional systems. Andy started plan...

This week’s Tillage Edge discusses how grassweed control has become more important on all tillage farms and especially on non-plough based systems. Controlling wild oats has become even more challenging with the emergence of herbicide resistance in a small number of populations in counties across the southeast. Increasing populations of sterile brome and canary grass has added to the control chall...

The media is always trying to find - or at least tell us about - the next super food. Oats have a number of advantages over other cereals as they are nutritious, help people to live longer due to beta glucans, and are gluten free. On this week’s Tillage Edge podcast, Michael Hennessy is joined by Mariea O’Toole, Grain quality operations manager at Glanbia to find out how they have developed new ma...

Disease control in wheat is an important aspect to achieving high yields and on this week’s Tillage Edge podcast, Michael Hennessy chatted to Dr Stephen Kildea, a researcher in Oak Park and Ivan Whitten, a Teagasc advisor in Kildare, to discuss how to achieve robust disease control in winter wheat. Ivan pointed out that the cold dry weather in March and April delayed growth and disease development...

All growers are aware that disease control is needed in spring barley, however, selecting the correct products and the correct timing will determine if the farmer gets value for money and on this week’s Tillage Edge podcast, Deirdre Doyle, a researcher in Teagasc, told Michael Hennessy that disease levels are low at the moment but this can change especially as the weather is very showery at the mo...

The average farmer can put close to €15,000 worth of plant protection products through the sprayer each year. Given all of these PPP are applied to do a specific job there is a huge incentive for the farmer to make sure the spray hits the target and works effectively On this week’s Tillage Edge podcast, Michael Hennessy is joined by Ciaran Collins, a tillage specialist in Cork, who outlined the es...

This week Teagasc held the latest edition in the series of Crop Agronomy Webinars looking at different crops through the season. The question and answer sessions from the webinar are worth listening to again as there is a lot of useful information which will help with your agronomy decisions over the next number of weeks. Dermot Forristal and Francis Quigley, both from Teagasc, talk through the op...

The cold dry weather with late frosts have slowed growth and hampered crop management for farmers and on this week’s Tillage Edge podcast, Michael Hennessy is joined by Veronica Nyhan and Eoin Lyons with an update on the progress of winter crops. Despite a really good start for spring crops, fields are slowly greening up but soils are very dry and soil moisture deficits were touching 40mm at the s...

On this week’s Tillage Edge podcast, Shay Phelan and Dr. Stephen Kildea, specialists in Teagasc, Oakpark join Michael Hennessy to discuss this topic in more detail. Firstly, Shay outlines why the leaf three is important and how to dissect a plant to identify the flag leaf and also the leaf three. You can watch a video on this here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upC54GRDQuM Stephen meanwhile, out...

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,...

Teagasc held the first in a series of Crop Agronomy Webinars this week looking at different crops through the season. Presented by Ciaran Collins, the Question and Answer sessions from the webinar are worth listening to again as there is a lot of useful information which will help with your agronomy decisions over the next number of weeks. On the Q&A, Dr Stephen Kildea, Teagasc, Oakpark, talke...

Disease control in winter barley needs to be considered carefully and on this week’s Tillage Edge podcast, Dr Stephen Kildea, Oak Park, Teagasc, joins Michael Hennessy with advice and information. He explained that areas such as variety resistance to disease, assessing the current disease threat and also looking forward a couple of weeks to what the weather may bring are the most important element...