Co. Down cereal grower Allan Chambers will not be applying bagged phosphate (P) and potash (K) to his winter cereal crops in 2023.
“It’s the cost for one thing,” he told Agriland. “P and K remain extremely expensive. But the decision taken can also be justified from an agronomy perspective.
“Our soils have remained consistently at an Index 3 level for both P and K over many years,” he said.
Allan attributes this scenario to the fact that all the fields on his farm receive 15t/ha of poultry litter on a three-year rotational basis.
“We have ready access to the litter,” he explained.
“It is the sole source of fertiliser that we use on forage maize. This is the only spring crop grown on the farm.”
Cereal growing
Allan planted out 36ha of a six-row hybrid winter barley at the end of last September. A further 60ha of winter wheat followed during October.
“All the crops are looking tremendously well at the present time,” he explained.
Like most parts of the country, Co. Down was hit with heavy rain last autumn. However, Allan is happy to confirm that plant numbers are where they should be across 98% of his barley.
This is in total contrast to the situation in other parts of the country, where a significant number of barley crops were badly affected by heavy rain and lying water.
Allan did not apply an insecticide to the barley during the last back-end because the Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute (AFBI) monitoring system had not flagged-up a Barley Yellow Dwarf Virus (BYDV) threat at the time.
His barley received its first split of nitrogen (N) 10 days ago. It was applied at a rate of 50kg/ha.
“We opted for urea,” Allan explained.
“The second and third split dressings will follow at the end of March and the middle of April. At that stage we will switch to CAN.”
Allan’s wheat will receive its first application of nitrogen in a fortnight’s time.
The Chambers’ farm is located close to the village of Seaforde. The soil types and prevailing weather conditions make his land very suited to the growing of crops.
The nearby Mourne Mountains and the accompanying wind patterns combine to make east Down one of Northern Ireland’s driest regions.
“The plan now is to get on with the required field work in a timely fashion, weather and ground conditions permitting,” he concluded.