Spring barley is yielding well so far this harvest and quality is good, but this does not happen by accident. Good crop management is essential and is showing in the fields this year.

Speaking to Cooney Furlong Grain agronomist and tillage farmer George Blackburn, he said that there are big differences in yields and quality with different management programmes. He’s a believer in minding and feeding the crop to create yield, which adds to your costs of production.

Tillage farmers need to keep costs down, but not so much that it limits yields and returns.

“Crops need six to seven weeks of fungicide coverage to grow potential early on in the season. Where you’re getting from 60 to 64 bushel weight is in the last week of grain fill, so the crop can’t die off,” George said.

Ideal programme

His ideal agronomy programme involves a small amount of fungicide with the weed spray on varieties like Planet, which are prone to net blotch and a focus on nutrition. George noted that this results in a bigger spend, but also a bigger return.

“We’d be using a lot of trace elements. Early on in the season that’s manganese, copper, zinc and then finishing off the crops we’d be big believers in magnesium on the head and boron and foliar potash.

"We’ve found that even a small amount of boron on the head does seem to help bushel weights. It definitely seems to help with grain fill,” he commented.

“The difference between a really good programme and an average to weak programme is probably €20/ac. The difference between passing for malting barley this year or going to feed because your grain quality is poor is going to be €70 and that’s only on 1t.

“On a 3t/ac crop that’s €210/ac. There’s far too much energy expended talking about how to save money. Nobody talks about how to make money. That’s where we’d be coming from; to try and add value to the grower.

'Your chips are in'

“When you put the plough or the grubber in the ground and you sow your seed, put your fertiliser out - your chips are in. Your money is spent. Trying to save money at that stage is not going to do you any good.

"Your chemical and nutrition programmes are the insurance policy. You’re trying to recoup that investment and build on it. You’re not trying to cut corners at that stage. Saving €10/ac at that stage is not really going to do anything for you.”

He also noted that as spring barley yield potential improves straw is becoming weaker and fungicide and nutrition will reduce risks with this.

“All the modern varieties do have issues with straw because they’re probably able to grow a 4t/ac potential crop on 3t/ac legs. It’s not that they have bad straw. They have fierce yield potential so the crops are heavy,” he said.

You can hear the full interview with George on this week’s Tillage Podcast by clicking here.