It was all blue skies and sunshine on the coast at Balbriggan early last week when Tony Bell was planting maize by the shoreline of the Irish Sea.
He started planting the previous week and had about 200ac ahead of him. Along with Anthony Berrill, the pair are able to get about 25ac planted in a day so it should be wrapped up by the time you’re reading. The crop will eventually be sold to his dairy farm customers as high-quality animal feed.
Some will say it’s late to be planting, but maize under plastic was still going in last week and Tony was waiting for the window to be fairly safe from frost as he was planting without a cover and direct drilling the crop. Crops he planted four days previously were already struck on the day we visited.
Soil
The land was in great order and conditions were ideal to work. Many areas were complaining of dry conditions across the country at the time, but the seedbed in north Dublin was showing no signs of dryness. The soil was a healthy brown colour, was filled with organic matter and had moisture for the seed.
Ten years of mushroom compost application is contributing to this, as well as direct drilling and cover crops providing shelter over the winter.
Tony hasn’t ploughed his land in 10 years. His weed control also looks to be spot-on with no grass weeds in the cereal crops.
Tony Bell placing 12-5-22.5 fertiliser with his Czajkowski drill on Monday, 12 May 2025.
Maize
Tony has winter and spring wheat on the farm this year as well and usually has beans. He plants beans for hire with his Czajkowski drill, the wheat is planted with this as well, but his main crop is maize, which he sells to livestock farmers as bulk or in wrapped round bales.
He grew his first strip-drilled crop in 2018 and hasn’t looked back.
In that year, the maize under film was hit by strong winds at the end of September and 380ac were flattened. It was an expensive venture. Crops only yielded 14t/ac. Changes were needed to minimise risks.
Since then, he has been trialling different varieties and sowing methods on his farm with some ups and downs.
This year he has seven varieties in tramline trials – Foxtrot, Prospect, P7034, P7381, Saxon, Scandinav and Severus. He also has sowing depth trials to see if emergence can be more uniform.
Bales of maize in Tony's yard.
Growing the crop
Triticale had been grown over winter in the field being drilled when we visited. It was mowed on 9 April, foraged and sold as feed to a customer.
Tony is harvesting the triticale at flag leaf stage where it is most digestible, making it an excellent buffer feed for dairy cows particularly in summer. The triticale stubble and roots are an ideal environment to plant maize directly.
After an application of glyphosate to clean up the field, Tony was going in with his Czajkowski drill and placing 12-5-22.5 in the ground. The drill’s ripper legs are adjusted at 75cm spacing, matching the Vaderstad tempo maize drill.
Travelling behind him in the sower, Anthony was placing microgranular 11-20-0 fertiliser in the seed furrow with the maize seed drill.
The GPS on the two New Holland tractors are converged so the fertiliser is all in the row directly underneath the seed and available to the growing plants’ roots.
The microgranular fertiliser leaves phosphate and nitrogen immediately available to the seedling. Tony said maize weans off the seed after three leaves so it’s important to have fertiliser available.
The seed is drilled at 65mm depth and at 130mm apart. When Tony gets down to check the seed, it is bang on the mark. The seed spacing can be changed by the millimetre from the iPad computer in the cab.
In front of the sower is a Conceptagri strip-tiller. It tills a 30cm wide strip, 75mm deep. The rotor has a ripper leg, running at 250-300mm deep, to eliminate compaction and a roller that firms the tilled soil so that the seed placement is at the same level all the way along.
Spiked packer wheels run behind where the seed is drilled to eliminate the seed furrow wall and so he will not roll the field.
The seed drill plants exactly where the fertiliser was placed.
Tony said the system has many benefits. Using only two tractors, his diesel usage is around 15l/ac. Only 40ac in 100ac are actually tilled, which reduces wear and tear and can increase output. He is using about 30% less fertiliser than when it was broadcast, which is significant.
Tony will follow up with Calaris and Accent for weed control and he will apply amino acids and Epsom salts when the plant is at three-true leaves and seven-true leaves.
He will do a sap analysis to check for nutrient deficiencies and he applies Root Boost to the soil.
Yield
The question on everyone’s mind is no doubt “what is the yield like?” Tony’s average yield last year was above 15t/ac. All his maize is weighed.
He had reduced his fertiliser inputs significantly in 2024 and this year has increased this to push more yield. He says the average yield of maize under film in his area is about 19.5t/ac. With the extra fertiliser, he hopes to get around 18t/ac in yield and has hit this in some crops before now at similar rates to this season.
He added that it is much harder to get high average yield on larger acres, however, with the availability of some excellent new open hybrids, that average target yield is achievable.
His 2024 dry matter content averaged 25-28%, but he is hitting up to 35% starch in some fields, depending on variety and cob fill.
Finely ground 11-20-0 is placed beside the seed.
His target is 30% DM, 30% starch maize, which is quite achievable with this system and is an excellent quality forage for a dairy cow.
He says that it’s all about cob yield with maize, as 60% of the maize starch bypasses the cow’s rumen and is digested in her gut which has massive benefits in terms of milk protein and cow health.
So, the yield is down, but is this balanced out with the costs?
Tony calculates his costs before land rental as broadly in line with Teagasc figures. He estimates it to be about €450/ac below maize grown under film and plough/till before establishment.
Teagasc figures for growing maize in the open are estimated at €709/ac. At a yield of 18t/ac, that’s a cost of €39/t.
The increase in fertiliser spend to €225/ac is up on last year, but should result in a higher yield to reach that reduced cost per tonne.
Let’s place the cost of growing in the open at €1,075/ac and a yield of 25t/ac, which farmers further south with plastic film and slurry can achieve as a yield, then their cost is €43/t.
Tony says you work with what you have and this system suits a tillage farmer like him who is already strip-tilling cereals and beans.
He emphasises that land rent is the main cost and is not included in these calculations.
One massive factor that Tony reckons may get overlooked is soil conditions. As he is placing his fertiliser deep in the soil, runoff/ losses are reduced.
He also adds that he has excellent soil trafficability at harvest – no pulling trailers out of fields – and he often side fills trucks directly in October.
The soil is able to hold its own even in wet harvesting conditions.
It was all blue skies and sunshine on the coast at Balbriggan early last week when Tony Bell was planting maize by the shoreline of the Irish Sea.
He started planting the previous week and had about 200ac ahead of him. Along with Anthony Berrill, the pair are able to get about 25ac planted in a day so it should be wrapped up by the time you’re reading. The crop will eventually be sold to his dairy farm customers as high-quality animal feed.
Some will say it’s late to be planting, but maize under plastic was still going in last week and Tony was waiting for the window to be fairly safe from frost as he was planting without a cover and direct drilling the crop. Crops he planted four days previously were already struck on the day we visited.
Soil
The land was in great order and conditions were ideal to work. Many areas were complaining of dry conditions across the country at the time, but the seedbed in north Dublin was showing no signs of dryness. The soil was a healthy brown colour, was filled with organic matter and had moisture for the seed.
Ten years of mushroom compost application is contributing to this, as well as direct drilling and cover crops providing shelter over the winter.
Tony hasn’t ploughed his land in 10 years. His weed control also looks to be spot-on with no grass weeds in the cereal crops.
Tony Bell placing 12-5-22.5 fertiliser with his Czajkowski drill on Monday, 12 May 2025.
Maize
Tony has winter and spring wheat on the farm this year as well and usually has beans. He plants beans for hire with his Czajkowski drill, the wheat is planted with this as well, but his main crop is maize, which he sells to livestock farmers as bulk or in wrapped round bales.
He grew his first strip-drilled crop in 2018 and hasn’t looked back.
In that year, the maize under film was hit by strong winds at the end of September and 380ac were flattened. It was an expensive venture. Crops only yielded 14t/ac. Changes were needed to minimise risks.
Since then, he has been trialling different varieties and sowing methods on his farm with some ups and downs.
This year he has seven varieties in tramline trials – Foxtrot, Prospect, P7034, P7381, Saxon, Scandinav and Severus. He also has sowing depth trials to see if emergence can be more uniform.
Bales of maize in Tony's yard.
Growing the crop
Triticale had been grown over winter in the field being drilled when we visited. It was mowed on 9 April, foraged and sold as feed to a customer.
Tony is harvesting the triticale at flag leaf stage where it is most digestible, making it an excellent buffer feed for dairy cows particularly in summer. The triticale stubble and roots are an ideal environment to plant maize directly.
After an application of glyphosate to clean up the field, Tony was going in with his Czajkowski drill and placing 12-5-22.5 in the ground. The drill’s ripper legs are adjusted at 75cm spacing, matching the Vaderstad tempo maize drill.
Travelling behind him in the sower, Anthony was placing microgranular 11-20-0 fertiliser in the seed furrow with the maize seed drill.
The GPS on the two New Holland tractors are converged so the fertiliser is all in the row directly underneath the seed and available to the growing plants’ roots.
The microgranular fertiliser leaves phosphate and nitrogen immediately available to the seedling. Tony said maize weans off the seed after three leaves so it’s important to have fertiliser available.
The seed is drilled at 65mm depth and at 130mm apart. When Tony gets down to check the seed, it is bang on the mark. The seed spacing can be changed by the millimetre from the iPad computer in the cab.
In front of the sower is a Conceptagri strip-tiller. It tills a 30cm wide strip, 75mm deep. The rotor has a ripper leg, running at 250-300mm deep, to eliminate compaction and a roller that firms the tilled soil so that the seed placement is at the same level all the way along.
Spiked packer wheels run behind where the seed is drilled to eliminate the seed furrow wall and so he will not roll the field.
The seed drill plants exactly where the fertiliser was placed.
Tony said the system has many benefits. Using only two tractors, his diesel usage is around 15l/ac. Only 40ac in 100ac are actually tilled, which reduces wear and tear and can increase output. He is using about 30% less fertiliser than when it was broadcast, which is significant.
Tony will follow up with Calaris and Accent for weed control and he will apply amino acids and Epsom salts when the plant is at three-true leaves and seven-true leaves.
He will do a sap analysis to check for nutrient deficiencies and he applies Root Boost to the soil.
Yield
The question on everyone’s mind is no doubt “what is the yield like?” Tony’s average yield last year was above 15t/ac. All his maize is weighed.
He had reduced his fertiliser inputs significantly in 2024 and this year has increased this to push more yield. He says the average yield of maize under film in his area is about 19.5t/ac. With the extra fertiliser, he hopes to get around 18t/ac in yield and has hit this in some crops before now at similar rates to this season.
He added that it is much harder to get high average yield on larger acres, however, with the availability of some excellent new open hybrids, that average target yield is achievable.
His 2024 dry matter content averaged 25-28%, but he is hitting up to 35% starch in some fields, depending on variety and cob fill.
Finely ground 11-20-0 is placed beside the seed.
His target is 30% DM, 30% starch maize, which is quite achievable with this system and is an excellent quality forage for a dairy cow.
He says that it’s all about cob yield with maize, as 60% of the maize starch bypasses the cow’s rumen and is digested in her gut which has massive benefits in terms of milk protein and cow health.
So, the yield is down, but is this balanced out with the costs?
Tony calculates his costs before land rental as broadly in line with Teagasc figures. He estimates it to be about €450/ac below maize grown under film and plough/till before establishment.
Teagasc figures for growing maize in the open are estimated at €709/ac. At a yield of 18t/ac, that’s a cost of €39/t.
The increase in fertiliser spend to €225/ac is up on last year, but should result in a higher yield to reach that reduced cost per tonne.
Let’s place the cost of growing in the open at €1,075/ac and a yield of 25t/ac, which farmers further south with plastic film and slurry can achieve as a yield, then their cost is €43/t.
Tony says you work with what you have and this system suits a tillage farmer like him who is already strip-tilling cereals and beans.
He emphasises that land rent is the main cost and is not included in these calculations.
One massive factor that Tony reckons may get overlooked is soil conditions. As he is placing his fertiliser deep in the soil, runoff/ losses are reduced.
He also adds that he has excellent soil trafficability at harvest – no pulling trailers out of fields – and he often side fills trucks directly in October.
The soil is able to hold its own even in wet harvesting conditions.
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