Contractors play a key role on most tillage farms. This principle has been further endorsed during the spring 2024 planting season.
Two agricultural contractors discuss the spring planting season to-date on the Tillage Edge podcast – Patrick Nolan, from Athy, Co. Kildare and Padraig Noonan, from Connagh, Co. Cork.
Nolan provides a range of tillage related services, including the delivery of min-till and plough-based crop establishment.
He commented: “We also provide a baling service, grass and straw, while also putting out dung and chicken litter.”
Noonan provides a full tillage service plus silage and grass-reseeding services. “We work a lot with dairy farmers,” he explained.
Contractors’ perspective
Both contractors confirmed a backlog of work from last autumn.
“In our case, only 50% of the intended crop area was sown out last autumn. However, the easing of the three-crop rule simplified matters a lot, once we got around to spring planting,” Padraig Noonan said.
“So instead of a grower, looking to plant out a mix of spring oats, spring wheat and spring barley, he had the option of pushing ahead with barley only.
“At this stage, we are nearly finished the spring setting. We got a very good run of weather. When the soil was right, we were able to make a lot of headway.”
Maize
Maize is the only spring crop that remains to be planted out by Noonan.
“It’s a bit more time consuming with the new plastic,” he commented.
“The output of the machine is back 25%. It’s a bit harder to get through the work. Our aim is to sow out 350ha of maize under plastic and a further 100ha without a cover.
“There is still a lot of ground not ploughed in our area. There will probably be a lot more maize going in this year. The question is – will these crops be planted out with plastic or not?”
Patrick Nolan also confirmed a large carryover of work from the back end of 2023.
“We only got between 45% and 50% of winter crops planted out. We carried that and we also gained work coming into the spring,” Nolan said.
“We are half way through our current work load. But we lost 40% of the land previously identified, most of which will go towards beet and maize.
“These are crops that we haven’t looked at as yet. Some guys have started considering these options. The trouble is, it’s still very cold at night.”
Forage crops
According to the Cork-based contractor, a number of factors are driving farmers to look at forage crops at the present time.
These include the reality that very few barley crops will meet the Boortmalt specification, the lateness of the season, the poor forward prices and the shortage of barley seed.
He further explained: “Things are also quite tight within tillage at the present time, given the fact that 2023 was such a challenging year.
“I really feel that tillage farmers do not want to grow late sown spring cereals on a shoe string margin.”
Spring beans
Significantly, Patrick Nolan confirmed a significant increase in the area of spring beans sown out in his catchment area this year.
“We could be talking about an uplift in the region of 40%,” he commented.
“Spring wheat is not a popular crop for me, either as a farmer or contractor. As far as I can make out, anyone who would have traditionally sown the crop committed again in 2024.
“But I am not aware of any new spring wheat crops going in.”
Meanwhile, there are indications that the area of spring beans planed out in Co. Cork is up year-on-year.
“The protein payment looks more attractive this year than it ever did. So we could be looking at a 15% uplift in the area of beans planted in 2024,” Noonan continued.
“They were a crop that could be drilled when the weather was fair. We are talking about a big enough seed. So it was possible to set beans when it wasn’t possible to drill any other crop.
“In contrast, very little spring wheat was sown out in the Cork area. What I have noticed, however, is the fact that farmers are growing grain for fear of not having straw available to them,” he added.
Meanwhile, significant areas of land that would have traditionally been rented by tillage farmers have been taken by milk producers in 2024.
“Some of this ground will be earmarked for maize. But, for the most part, it will be put back into grass,” Padraig Noonan explained.
“In our case we do a lot of re-seeding work. At this stage of the year, we will always go in with the plough, although we do have a large disc.
“We find that ploughed ground dries out much faster, which allows the entire re-seeding process to be speeded up.”