In this Terrachem Cropswatch video, John Mulhare discusses the performance of his beet herbicide programme and highlights his standard approach to driving yield once the weed control is complete.
Due to the widespread and continued level of frost which occurred in April, and the subsequent record-breaking level of rain in early May (125 mm for John’s farm versus a previous high for May of 58mm), the simple task of getting herbicide applied proved to be a significant problem.
With timings compromised, John changed from his normal approach of a split T1 application and applied a three spray programme as follows:
- T1 – Debut 30g, Betenal Flo 0.4L, Nortron 0.1L, Venzar Flow 0.4L, Mondello (metamitron) 0.5L, Super Rapeeze 0.5L;
- T2 – (10 days later) Same spray as T1;
- T3 – (10 days later) Betenal Flo 2.5L, Nortron 0.7L, Mondello 2.0L, Super Rapeeze 1.0L..
The final spray also received GrowPlanB (Boron + Molybdenum) at 3.0L\ha and Uplift ATG at 3.0L\ha.
In addition, an aphicide was included for mangold fly control.
As can be seen from the untreated plots in the herbicide trial Terrachem are running in the field, the result of the herbicide programme can only be described as very, very good, in what would otherwise have been a very dirty field.
Getting the most from beet
John’s attention then turned to inputs targeted at getting the most from the beet itself, whereas the herbicides may be regarded as inputs to solve a problem – namely weed competition.
John typically grows his beet with high inputs of organic fertiliser, using only urea as his chemical fertiliser input. He spends in the region of €60/ac/year however, on biostimulants and foliar nutrition – which he equates to less than the cost of 2t of beet.
He applies much of this as a dedicated “nutritional spray” after his herbicide programme is complete, as the plants now have a good level of leaf cover to take in the foliar nutrition. He also applies his graminicde at this timing as he prefers not to mix this with his broad leaved weed herbicides.
Though his grass weed burden is low, he sees beet as a usefull crop for getting on top of grass weed issues.
This nutritional application had only been applied earlier that day as follows:
- Satchmo @ 1.5L\ha for grass weeds;
- Uplift at 3.0L\ha for nitrogen use efficiency (biostimulant);
- GrowPlanB @ 3.0L\ha for Boron and Molybdenum;
- Liqui-Plex Mg @ 2.0L\ha for magnesium and amino acids (biostimulant + nutrient);
- Liqui-Plex Mn @2.0L\ha for manganese and amino acids (biostimulant + nutrient).
He highlights the importance of spending money on the crop you are actually growing, as opposed to just targeting inputs on problems such as weed control etc.
Boron application
In particular, John focused in on the level of Boron he applies to his crop, with as much as three full rates of GrowPlanB applied over the growing season. The first going with the herbicide programme, the second applied just now, and the third going with the first fungicide later in mid July. While some may see this as excessive, John quantifies his reasons very simply as follows:
‘Boron leaches from the soil as easily as nitrogen – and consider the recent May rainfall, this is very relevant.’
We are now growing far higher yields of fodder beet than we were in our days of growing sugar beet, and as a consequence the requirements for Boron are much greater.
In his role as an agronomist he has seen a huge increase in both the frequency of occurrence and the intensity of Boron deficiency in beet in recent years.
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