The Tillage Edge

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...

Growing rye is becoming more of an option for farmers in recent years and on the latest episode of the Tillage Edge, Michael Hennessy speaks to Tipperary farmer, Gerard O’Mara, Teagasc tillage specialist, Ciaran Collins, and Teagasc adviser, Conor Kavanagh, to find out more. Gerard O’Mara, has been successfully growing rye for the past number of years and he has increased the acre of rye on his fa...

On the final Tillage Edge podcast for the year, Michael Hennessy reviewed the 2020 growing season with Teagasc specialists Ciaran Collins and Shay Phelan. Both Shay and Ciaran pointed to the highs of a great start this spring but the weather played its part in the lows with drought in the east and storms in the south contributing to lower yields. Despite the lower yields a good rotation and/or add...

On the latest Tillage Edge podcast, Dr Ewen Mullins from Teagasc, Oak Park joined Michael Hennessy to discuss and explain the developments in plant breeding and biotechnology. Ewen briefly mapped breeding developments over the last 150 years before describing the different types of Genetically Modified (GM) techniques in use today. The most used GM technique is transgenics which uses genes from on...

Dr Noel Richardson, Lecturer and Director of HealthCORE in IT Carlow, joined Michael Hennessy on the latest episode of the Tillage Edge podcast to speak about farmers’ health and research carried out for the ‘On Feirm Ground’ initiative. On the podcast, Noel pointed to the fact that farmers need to take better care of their most precious asset: their health. The research with focus groups highligh...

Catherine Keena, Environmental Specialist in Teagasc joins Michael Hennessy on the latest Tillage Edge podcast to talk about hedges on tillage farms and how best to manage them. Catherine explained that hedges are excellent for both biodiversity and carbon capture. She pointed out that it’s the linear length that matters most, in that normal hedges around smaller fields are more beneficial than a...

Decreased water quality issues are widespread across Ireland regardless of area or farming system in that area and ASSAP, the Agricultural Sustainability Support and Advice Programme, is tasked with working with farmers to help improve water quality. On this episode of the Tillage Edge, Fiona Doolan, ASSAP advisor in Teagasc, joins Michael Hennessy to explain the programme and how the supports beh...

Dr. Daire O’Huallachain, an agro-ecologist in Teagasc, joined Michael Hennessy on this week’s Tillage Edge podcast to discuss biodiversity on the agricultural landscape. Daire firstly explained that biodiversity in a landscape includes all the plants, insects, animals within it and that the biodiversity within an area will be a reflection of the management of that area, e.g. biodiversity in a rura...

Dr Stephen Kildea, a plant pathologist in Teagasc and Ciaran Collins, a crops specialist in Teagasc joined Michael Hennessy on this week’s Tillage Edge podcast to discuss weed control at this time of year. Ciaran began by discussing weed control in oilseed rape and he also explained that due to late planting and delayed crop development, weed control was even more important this year as crops will...

Dr. Michael Gaffney, a Research Entomologist in Teagasc, joined Michael Hennessy on this week’s Tillage Edge podcast to discuss aphid control and BYDV. Michael explained that even though there is some infection initially from winged aphids, only a small proportion of the problematic aphids (Grain aphid and Bird Cherry Oat aphid) actually carry the virus. It’s the offspring of these aphids which ca...

Weed control in winter cereals is the topic covered on this week’s Tillage Edge podcast with Martin Bourke and Jimmy Staples joining Michael Hennessy to discuss in more detail. Martin, a Teagasc advisor from Wicklow, discussed the advantages of selecting a pre-emergence or post emergence herbicide options. Martin outlined knowing the field history is extremely important to selecting the best pre-e...

James McDonnell a Financial Specialist in Teagasc joins Michael Hennessy on this week’s Tillage Edge podcast to discuss how best to manage your farm finances. James starts with the basics describing the differences between main concepts like turnover, profit and cash flow. ”Cash flow is essentially a measure of the cash in your account,” he explains. “In certain circumstances you could have a high...

James Nolan, a grain trader from R&H Hall, joined Michael Hennessy on the Tillage Edge podcast this week to discuss the cereal harvest around the world and what that means for Irish tillage producers. James talked about the volumes of maize, wheat, and barley production around the world and noted Russia's large harvest at an estimated 83 million tonnes. This is currently the cheapest supply of...

Dr Veronica Nyham from Teagasc, Portlaoise joins Michael Hennessy on this week’s Tillage Edge podcast to discuss important aspects of soil fertility and soil sampling. Veronica explains that over 50% of tillage soils have low soil fertility (index 1 and 2). Where farmers are using maintenance fertiliser levels on these fields then crop yield will be penalised. Lime is the most import part of soil...

On this week’s Tillage Edge podcast, Michael Hennessy finds out about the harvest so far from the midlands and the south of the country. John Kelly, from Teagasc Offaly said there are a lot of difficulties this year with low yields of both grain and straw but there are emerging problems of lodged crops and grain loss. The position is worse in the south with winter wheat shedding heads and grain re...

Desiccating potato crops are the topic on this week’s Tillage Edge with Ciaran Collins joined by Shay Phelan, Teagasc Potato Specialist to discuss in more detail. Firstly Shay gives an update on how crops are progressing as we approach harvest and he then highlights that there are significant challenges facing growers this year with high disease pressure, deteriorating ground conditions and limite...