It is very difficult to comply with nitrates rules relating to stubble cultivation post-harvest in a year where the weather has been extremely challenging according to the head of Crops Knowledge Transfer Department with Teagasc.
Michael Hennessy was discussing the current state of the tillage sector on the latest AgriFocus podcast from Agriland which is available now.
Under the Nitrates Directive, tillage farmers are required to take measures to establish green cover as soon as possible post-harvest to prevent the pollution of waters caused by nitrates.
Hennessy said: “I wouldn’t say there is 20% of straw baled. Winter barley, some of the earlier stuff, has been harvested maybe two and a half weeks ago, all that is still on the ground.
“We’re well passed 14 days, but what can a farmer do? It’ll take at least three really good days to get anyway close to that straw being good enough to bale.
“But in fairness to farmers for the most part, they’re actually flat out trying to harvest. They’re on their combines, they’re on their tractors and trailers trying to get the grain in primarily, and straw, honestly, for lots of them, is the least of their worries.
“Some of that straw, or some of those fields will be well past the 14 days certainly this year and to a degree, in a year like this, it’s very difficult to comply with those [nitrates] rules.”
Harvest 2023
Hennessy told the podcast that the harvest this year started earlier than is normal and crops are coming in earlier than they usually would.
“The first crops [of winter barley] probably started to be harvested about two and a half weeks ago and we’re probably still finishing off the winter barley, in most of the country… just about finished up, but the north-east would be very different,” Hennessy explained.
“There’s an awful lots of crops still to be harvested up there. They really haven’t had much of a break to get those crops out.”
“You have a very wet crop on top, wet grain, which is very difficult obviously to get through the combine and the wetter the grain is, the less valuable it is, because it takes more money to dry it,” the Teagasc specialist stated.
In terms of grain moisture, Hennessy explained that it is coming in at well over 20% in some parts of the country, at which point tillage farmers begin to lose money.
The winter barley harvest is close to finished in parts of the south and south-east according to Teagasc.
In some areas, farmers have moved on to harvesting oilseed rape and oats.
“The oilseed rape – it’s only in the middle of doing that now and it needs to be done,” Hennessy continued.
“There is shedding already happening so that’s where you have the nice little pod and you have your 10 or 12 seeds in that. The pod can open a little bit and it will just go straight down to the ground and once it’s on the ground it’s lost.
“So you can imagine the really heavy rain over the last long number of weeks, when crops are very ripe, they tend to split a little bit and you can lose grain.”
Hennessy explained that there is a huge sense of urgency among tillage farmers to get oilseed rape harvested at the moment, and that a lot of it is being harvested at a higher moisture level than farmers would like, due to the weather.
Weather
Weather conditions are certainly hampering efforts to harvest crops at the moment and this is likely to impact on yields.
“Crops are being pummelled by this rain and some very heavy rain at times with some wind as well,” Hennessy continued.
“Some of the straw is brackling or breaking down and some of those heads are going to the ground and are being lost.
“But also on top of that, underneath we have soils at field capacity, in other words, they’re full of water. So heavy machinery going in on top of that is not a good place to be, especially with the likes of heavy grain trailers being carted off it.”
He added that it will be extremely difficult for farmers to get any kind of good straw as they have cut, in many instances, quite low to the ground to get as many heads as they can, but this has left stubble short with no airflow around it to ensure good bale quality.
“The problems are mounting,” he added.
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