Controlling disease in crops is becoming increasingly difficult with the loss of crop protection products, the head crop scientist in Teagasc has said.

Speaking on the Irish Farmers Journal stand at the Ploughing with tillage editor Siobhán Walsh, Teagasc’s head of environment, crops and land use John Spink highlighted the difficulties tillage farmers face controlling disease.

“It has become more difficult to control disease, as we’ve lost crop protection products, particularly Bravo was a big loss. Not that it gave a huge amount of disease control. It helped protect the other products that were giving good disease control.

“It has become more difficult in the last couple of years to keep on top of disease. When you get poor autumns, there’s a temptation to plant the crop early, because you’re worried about coming into wet weather,” Spink said.

In conversation with Siobhán, Spink said the earlier you plant a crop, the more pressure you put on in terms of disease.

Walsh said many farmers had told her they intend to sow this weekend, which both warned against, if possible.

Gene editing

On gene editing, Spink pointed out that he hopes “in the near future we would be able to get varieties that are much more resistant to septoria in particular, which will make a huge difference”.

“Gene editing - it’s not genetic modification, it’s doing what you could do conventionally, but it’s very slow,” he added.