The standard of cereal growing in this country has increased hugely over the past 10 years or so. Panoramas of full and even and perfect wheat crops surround me on the Meath plains with not a wild oat in sight or indeed any other weed sticking its head over a perfect canopy.

Some are excellent direct drilled crops following beans but I know most are ploughed. But of course, the difference this year is the total lack of bare patches and it’s all gorgeous wheat from one well-trimmed hedge to the far distant other. Beautiful.

Yes, there’s blackgrass about but I haven’t seen it; if it is present, drastic action is called for. However, for all of that, my crops are not as clean as my neighbour’s, I’ve volunteer oats in a few fields of wheat and some wild oats here and there as well. But that aside, they’re good crops too, some are min-till but possibly our best are ploughed. Time will tell but, unfortunately, the weather has been poor for flowering.

And despite the destructive and testing weather of late, lodging is not the issue it used to be. But this is now imperative with wide combine headers. Whatever chance you had of scraping wheat off the floor with a 10 or 16-foot header, it’s hugely more difficult with a 25-foot (or wider) header. But technology has helped with flex headers like the American-built MacDon which can do a super job in flat crops. Still, I’d prefer not to be there.

Modern combines need perfect crops to work well and when I think back to the weedy and scutchy crops we used to cut, it wouldn’t work today.

Affordable glyphosate (Roundup and other brands) can take the credit for these clean crops and were it to be withdrawn, tillage farming would come to a messy halt. Roundup is as essential to tillage farming as grass is to cows.

Regenerative tillage

Regenerative agriculture gets a lot of press at the present time. For those of you not up to speed with such trendy terminology, regenerative tillage farmers give the poor old plough a wide berth and use fewer chemicals in the form of sprays and fertilisers, which is good, if that’s your thing. Food brands like Shredded Wheat remind me at the breakfast table that their wheat is regeneratively sourced which eases my mind no end.

And one very well-known Irish stout brand spins out the narrative about its use of regenerative barley. Will this give you less of a hangover after six pints? I think not. And Bakers dog food tells us it uses regeneratively sourced raw materials, as if my mutts or I give a toss.

Seriously though, I don’t have an issue with regenerative farming, but then I’ve no problem with mainstream tillage farming either, as we also love our soils and nature.

It’s just we don’t think the plough is as soil damaging as they do and we’re less excited about carbon release. For me, the worst thing about ploughing is unlevel fields. But when you offer the regenerative concept to the great unwashed, of course they’ll jump at it and think it’ll help them to live forever.

Arguably the regenerative consumer is missing the point because Roundup is the chemical they love to hate and direct drilling regenerative farmers need Roundup, in the absence of ploughing. I believe Roundup is so safe that if it came carbonated and in a ring-pull can, I’d drink it. But please don’t try this at home because it’s oily and, at the very least, will give you a bad dose of the runs.

There are a few copies remaining of my book Till, Farming Stories from the Plains of Meath at antoniasbookstore.com.