Forage maize crops are progressing well throughout Ireland at the present time, according to Maizetech’s, John Foley.
“Crops are responding tremendously well to the continuing warm and dry conditions,” he told Agriland.
“It’s all about the heat. Maize crops can put roots well down into the ground. So plants are not suffering from any form of water stress at the present time.
“However, crops will need rain as they move towards maturity in July and August.”
One impact of the very dry conditions over the past few weeks has been the lack of herbicide activity between the rows of plastic used to give crops an accelerated start.
“This is a consequence of the fact that the moisture needed by the herbicide to work was not available,” Foley continued.
“There was never an issue in those parts of a field covered by plastic, as soil moisture levels had been fully maintained in these locations.”
Growers are being advised to use Elumis in cases where weed burdens are now a challenge within maize crops. Accent can also be used, if wild oat is a particular problem.
Maize
According to Foley, the acreage of forage maize grown in Ireland could well be up substantially, year-on-year.
“Come the middle of May, quite a number of tillage farmers took the decision that planting spring barley was not going to be a feasible option,” he said.
“So they committed to drilling maize instead. On the back of this, the demand for seed increased significantly. In our own case, we actually ran out of stocks on a number of occasions.”
Some of these later sown maize crops are being grown on contract. But in the case of many farmers, the decision was taken to push ahead on spec, with the expectation of finding a market later in the season.
“We are also seeing a mix of farmers using plastic or simply pushing ahead without it,” Foley added.
“But it’s now evident that the new compostable films are doing a tremendous job in giving maize crops a very strong start.
“There are strong indications that the compostable films give crops an even stronger start than would have been the case with the previously used oxy films.”
Meanwhile, Teagasc is confirming an increase in the area of maize grown in the open this year.
Weed control in these crops will be the priority in the coming days. Post-emergence weed control will be based on mesotrione products.
According to Teagasc agronomists, there are now restrictions on how often Calaris/Maizekleen can be used.
So careful planning is required – only one application of Calaris/Maizekleen is allowed per season and only one year in three.
Elumis (1.5L/ha) is a co-formulation of mesotrione and nicosulfuron (Accent) and can be used as an alternative to Calaris.