Tim Sheil is an agronomist with Bolgers Agri. He walks crops along much of the Co. Wexford coastline from Kilmore Quay to Courtown.

On his travels he comes across a varied range of soil types, from reclaimed land from the sea to heavy clay loams to Macamore-type soils.

The dry weather of late has thrown up deficiencies in some of the spring barley crops he has been walking. He also noted that due to challenging soil types some crops weren’t planted into ideal seedbeds and this may not be helping the cause.

Talking to AgriLand for this installment of the Crop Walk Series, he noted that crops are “under pressure for rain and are showing up a lot of deficiencies at the moment”.

Image source: Tim Sheil

He is encouraging farmers with deficiencies in spring barley to go out with the sprayer sooner rather than later.

“It’s under pressure. Especially in some of the more challenging soil types, a lot of deficiencies are starting to show up.

If it’s a severe deficiency they’ll get straights like Mantrac of Zinctrac. If deficiencies are more moderate they’ll get a combination that will cover everything.

He commented that crops are generally in good condition, but a small bit of rain would help to improve things.

Tim Sheil is an agronomist with Bolgers Agri

He might apply foliar K to some crops or even some foliar nitrogen to give crops “a little kick” where deficiencies are causing a concern.

Image source: Tim Sheil

The last of the spring barley crops were planted around April 20, so there has been no massive panic with the weed spray up to now, but weeds were emerging when Tim was out walking last week.

There is a wide variety of weeds, but most are easy to control.

Some ground would have prickly sow thistle so farmers need to spend money there on Galaxy, but otherwise weed sprays will be fairly cheap.

He added that Duplosan and Cameo will probably be applied to a lot of crops this year as the mix gives a good spectrum of control and is relatively cheap. Wild oats will be controlled later in the season.

“We’re at the ideal stage to apply an aphicide down here at the minute,” Tim commented.

Image source: Tim Sheil

Spring beans

In the bean fields Tim has been keeping an eye on some great crops which can be seen in the picture below. The lack of rain is starting to show somewhat, but with no great effect on the crop overall.

Image source: Tim Sheil

“The beans are coming under pressure for water as well. There are leaves starting to curl up a little bit. They’re getting a little bit short on moisture, but they still look good.”

The pre-emergence herbicide worked well and a graminicide will be applied to some crops to control weeds like wild oats. The bean weevil also seems to have kept away from crops in the sunny south-east.

Image source: Tim Sheil

Spring oats

The spring oats are doing well and seem to be coping better than spring barley crops.

They’re not showing up the stresses that the spring barley is showing.

“They have an even stand and in fields beside spring barley, where the barley was under a little bit of pressure, the oats looked very healthy. It was standing a little bit better. The oats look very happy.”

Spring oats will get their weed spray in the coming days and some will receive manganese at the same time.

Winter barley

The winter barley Tim looked at last week had awns peeping.

“Awns are starting to come. It’s been a funny year. I feel it’s a long time until harvest not to put a final spray on when T2s have been on a while,” Tim commented.

Image source: Tim Sheil

He added that in some situations he might go back with straight Proline to lower costs and give farmers peace of mind.

“Crops are spotless. I’ll wait another week to get the head fully out. It’s a long way until the end of July, but you don’t want to be throwing the kitchen sink at it either.”