Gary Gillespie

UCD Lyons Farm, Celbridge, Co Kildare

There has been good growth in Kildare in the past couple of weeks, and the winter crops have stretched a lot.

The winter rye is at GS32. It has remained very clean and it is a very thick crop. The flag leaf on the winter barley is emerging this week. The crop is thick and there is some rhynchosporium on the lower leaves.

The winter wheat is only at GS31 but is closing in on GS32, these plots were sown late at the end of November. There is yellow rust on the lower leaves but the crop has remained relatively clean of septoria. The winter oats are driving through the growth stages. There is still a lot of mildew on the crop, and it has some blotching too which is quite typical for the variety.

The earlier-sown spring demonstration plots were planted earlier this week. This was ten days later than planned due to the recent rainfall. The ground was ploughed, rolled, and power-harrowed before planting with a plot drill. Plots were rolled after planting. The second half of these plots will be planted towards the end of May.

Crops planted include barley, wheat, oats, naked oats, naked barley, rye, triticale, spelt, emmer wheat, einkorn, beans, green and yellow peas, blue and white lupins, chickpeas, lentils, camelina, maize and sunflowers both under plastic and uncovered, quinoa, buckwheat, millet, amaranth, linseed, lucerne, nigella, and teff.

Each crop is being planted at the upper end of its recommended sowing rate. Some industrial and vegetable crops will also be planted in addition to intercrop mixtures of cereals and legumes such as beans and wheat, peas and oats, and even peas and beans.

None of these crops will receive fertilisers, growth regulators, or fungicides so that their growth and disease pressures can be tracked during the growing season. The May-planted crops will help with teaching students about disease in early September.

Tom Murray

O’Shea Farms, Piltown, Co Kilkenny

This week is probably the busiest week of the year for the sprayer in Kilkenny. Ground wasn’t trafficable last week and work has backed up a little bit.

Tom did manage to get the open carrots sprayed with a pre-emergence herbicide of Stomp Aqua, Gamit, and Emerger last week just before the plants appeared above ground. The covered carrots are well emerged at this stage.

Potato planting resumed this week with the maincrop of salads. The variety is Jazzy and this planting will continue into next week. A pre-emergence herbicide of Emerger, Sencorex Flow, Defy, and Spotlight Plus is being applied to some of the crops this week too. Tom says that the loss of Metribuzin as a herbicide option will be felt and that although there are some alternatives available, none of them have such a broad range of controllable weeds and they also tend to be harder on the crops.

The spring barley crops look very full and are flying it. Malting crops were brought up to 100 units/ac, with feed crops getting an extra 20 units/ac. The barley will get Cameo Max and Pixxaro this week to control weeds.

The sprayer will also be in the wheat for the T1 fungicide. Tom says there is quite a bit of septoria on lower leaves despite the application of a T0 fungicide, so he has decided to apply Univoq and folpet at this timing rather than T2. He hopes that this will help to keep the septoria near the ground and prevent it from reaching the upper canopy.

The winter oats and barley are also due their T2 fungicide. The winter barley looks good and is very lush. It will receive Cerone, Balaya, and Imperis in the next few days.

Overall, the crops look good and Tom thinks the good weather will drive crops on and allow work to be caught up on.

Victor Love

Strabane, Co Tyrone

The nights have been very cold in Derry, with Victor waking up to icy conditions quite often in recent weeks.

Victor still has spring barley to plant this week. He will disc the ground first, but only down to 2.5cm. He hopes that this will disturb the slug and New Zealand flatworm eggs in the fields. Geraldine and Hurler barley will then be planted at 212kg/ha. Half of the nitrogen will be applied at planting, with the remainder being applied when the crop emerges. The nitrogen will total 112 units/ac. Victor decided to grow spring beans in his ley field, and they were direct drilled in on 12 April. This is the first time Victor has planted beans straight after grass so he will watch them closely. The chosen variety is Caprice, and the beans were planted at 235kg/ha.

Chicken pellets were applied down the chute with the seed, this was also done for the barley. This will provide nutrients to the seeds very quickly after germination, and are being used due to the high cost of DAP. The field was sprayed with glyphosate before sowing, and Victor applied Emerger as a pre-emergence herbicide at 1.75l/ha a few days ago. He will keep an eye on the old grass sward as a follow-up herbicide may be required.

The spring wheat has emerged well. The cold nights are slowing growth a small bit but Victor thinks it will grow strongly now. It has received two splits of fertiliser so far, bringing the wheat up to 104 units/ac.

The wheat also received pig slurry just before it emerged. An umbilical system was used to apply 1,500 gallons/ac. More pig slurry will be applied soon if Victor can source it.

A small bit of damage was done by the tractor applying the slurry, with the plants in the wheel tracks emerging more slowly, but Victor thinks that these areas will recover.