The Tillage Edge

The dry soils are making oilseed rape weed control difficult and choosing the correct options will maximise control but also minimise crop effects.     On this week’s Tillage Edge podcast, Ciarán Collins, a tillage specialist in Teagasc, discusses the benefits and drawbacks from a number of different approaches.   Ciarán explains that residual herbicides don’t work well in dry soils and growers sh...

Solar electricity from Photo Voltaic (PV) panels can be suitable for tillage farmers who are using a lot of energy such as potato or grain stores and on this week’s Tillage Edge podcast, Barry Caslin, a Bioenergy Specialist in Teagasc, discusses how PV can be useful to tillage farmers.   Barry explains that to get the best from these systems, self-use of the generated electricity will give the bes...

Oilseed rape will give comparable margins in 2023 to winter wheat and is a crop worth consideration on most farms and on this week’s Tillage Edge podcast,  Shay Phelan and Dermot Forristal from Teagasc discuss the varieties, establishment methods and early crop management of oilseed rape.   According to Shay, choosing a variety with high light leaf spot and pod shatter resistance is a good startin...

The Tillage Edge chatted to Andy Mahon, who is a farm manager in North Bedfordshire in the UK.  Andy, originally from Dublin, is almost finished the harvest already.  Andy said this has been the earliest, and easiest harvest he has ever been involved in.  Crops developed earlier than normal through the spring and the lack of water has not helped yields.  Andy said yields are 10% lower than the far...

Ted Massey, from the Nitrates Section at the Department of Agriculture, joined the Tillage Edge this week to discuss the new rules around stubble cultivation.  These rules are intended to encourage plants to grow and mop up nitrogen, which could be leached to ground water.  Ted chatted through a number of important clarifications to the rules and how farmers can best follow the rules at farm level...

Jim McCarthy joined the Tillage Edge podcast from Romania this week to give an update on the progress of his harvest and an overview of the harvest in his part of the world.     Jim said that the lack of rainfall so far in the growing season has been compounded by recent prolonged high temperatures and as a result, wheat yields are 40% lower than normal.     He also said he thinks the summer crops...

The harvest so far has been a mixed affair with relatively poor winter barley yields across the country.     On this week’s Tillage Edge podcast, John Pettit and Conor Kavanagh, both Teagasc tillage advisors, discuss the results so far from the south east and the south of the country.   Conor says the poor winter barley yields are probably a combination of earlier drilling which increased the leve...

Shay Phelan talks to Dermot Forristal and Brendan Burke from Oak Park on this week’s Tillage Edge podcast to discuss combine harvester settings to ensure that crops are harvested as efficiently as possible.    Both Dermot and Brendan emphasise the need to adjust the setting to take account of the crop and the harvesting conditions to get a good sample and to reduce losses.    Both also discuss how...

Dr. Steven Kildea joins Shay Phelan on this week’s Tillage Edge podcast to talk about potato blight.    Steven describes the conditions that favour the development of blight in a crop and also how to control the fungus.   Steven also discusses how a new strain of blight has been found in Ireland which has resistance to one of the popular fungicides used both commercially and by hobby growers.   Fo...

Input prices have skyrocketed but at the same time the value of outputs have also increased.  The value of chemical P and K has doubled, therefore the value of the P and K in straw has also doubled.     On the latest Tillage Edge podcast, Mark Plunkett and Dermot Forristal from Teagasc, discuss the value of straw and how best to incorporate straw this year.   Dermot also chats about the best techn...

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...