The Tillage Edge

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...

The latest Organic Farm Scheme is open to tillage farmers against the backdrop of an EU target to have 25% of all land in organic production by 2030 and on this week’s episode of the Tillage Edge, Elaine Leavy, an Organic Specialist in Teagasc, joined Michael Hennessy to discuss organic tillage in more detail. Firstly, she highlighted the fact there are some very successful organic tillage farmers...

Getting the best out of every kilogram of nitrogen applied on farm is not only desirable but necessary from a financial and environmental perspective and Dr Richie Hackett from Oak Park, Teagasc joins Michael Hennessy on this week’s Tillage Edge podcast to explain more. He told Michael that the rainfall over winter, in almost all years, is sufficient to wash nitrogen through the soils leaving litt...

Testing soil fertility (pH, phosphate, potassium, etc.) is one of the most important jobs a farmer can do on the farm as without healthy, well-balanced soils, there is little or no foundation for high yields. On this week’s Tillage Edge podcast, Conor O’Callaghan, from Teagasc, Dublin and Martin Ennis, a farmer from north county Dublin, join Michael Hennessy to discuss this topic. Conor completes...

This week Teagasc hosted the first in a new series of Crop Agronomy webinars. As with other webinars the questions asked by farmers and answered by an expert panel during the webinar are worth listening to again. This episode of the Tillage Edge covers the Q&A sessions covering winter barley, winter oats and preparing for planting spring beans and spring barley for the coming season. Shay Phel...

Teagasc hosted a Malting barley webinar on Tuesday 23rd of February which covered many areas such as liquid nitrogen, cover crops, ramularia and the activities as part of the Teagasc Boortmalt joint programme. The questions and answers section was particularly interesting as there were some really interesting angles covered and its worth listening to these again on this week’s Tillage Edge podcast...

Teagasc hosted a Winter Crops Agronomy update webinar on Tuesday 9th February which covered the management needs of winter barley, winter wheat and oilseed rape for the coming few weeks. This week’s Tillage Edge podcast features the questions and answer session from that webinar between attendees and Teagasc experts. The first section covered winter barley agronomy and Ciaran Collins, Tillage Spec...

Andy Mahon, from Dublin, is a farm manager on the Bromborough Estate Farm in North Bedfordshire, which is roughly halfway between London and Birmingham and firmly in the heart of arable country and he joins Michael Hennessy on this week's Tillage Edge podcast. Andy has worked hard on the costs of production on the farm and is the only full time employee managing close to 750 hectares of land. Andy...

The effects of Brexit on Irish tillage farmers is the topic on this week's Tillage Edge podcast with economists, farmers and machinery suppliers all featuring from the recent Spring Tillage Webinar. Tillage farmers were always likely to be the least affected whether there was a Brexit agreement or not according to Fiona Thorne, an economist in Teagasc. However, areas such as goods stuck in the sup...

Scotland has a similar climate to ours and the research carried out there is more comparable to Irish farms than work from continental US or Europe and on this week’s Tillage Edge podcast, Dr Cathy Hawes, from the James Hutton Institute near Dundee in Scotland joins Michael Hennessy to discuss the Scottish experience of maximising rotations. She explains that in the region she works in, they have...

Organic manures can supply a badly needed source of carbon to tillage soils according to Mark Plunkett, a Soils and Plant Nutrition Specialist in Teagasc on the latest Tillage Edge podcast. Mark told Michael Hennessy that a typical dressing of 20 tonnes per hectare of farm yard manure will supply 300 kg/ha of carbon to the soil. As slurries contain more water their carbon contribution is much lowe...