28 November 2024

Oilseed Rape Updates and Machinery Costs

Shay Phelan discusses the current condition of oilseed rape crops, herbicide application strategies, and the management of machinery costs on tillage farms.

Oilseed rape crops for the most part are looking quite well at the moment. The warmer than average temperatures in October and November has meant that crops have continued to grow and canopies are bigger now that normal especially in the early sown crops. Most have received fungicides and herbicides to date however, there are a number of crops where growers have not put on any broadleaf herbicides yet or are looking to control blackgrass and so are going to use Kerb Flo/Barclay Propyz or Astrokerb in the coming days and weeks. Most growers now opt for the Astrokerb as the aminopyralid broadens the range of weeds controlled see the table below of weeds controlled.

Table 1. Kerb and Astrokerb compared

$= only germinating speedwells controlled

Both will give good grassweed control including blackgrass, as so far we have not seen any resistance populations to the propyzamide. Rate for Kerb Flo is 1.75-2.1 L/ha and 1.5-1.7 l/ha for Astrokerb use the higher rates where blackgrass is an issue or where weeds are strong. Be aware that where crops are sprayed with AstroKerb the rape straw must be chopped.

Machinery Costs

Many tillage farmers have some spare time coming up over the next few weeks so it might be a good time to sit down and calculate out how much our machinery costs are on the farm. Traditionally machinery costs are considered one of the big three costs on tillage farms alongside land rent and fertiliser. However, we have seen a massive inflation in machinery costs over the past three or four years and I would suspect that on many farms now machinery is the biggest cost. In 2018, Teagasc conducted a survey of tillage farms to establish actual machinery costs; one of the key findings at the time was that 14% of farms had higher machinery costs than the cost of employing a contractor to do the work. The suspicion is that this may well still be the case but the risk is even greater. The machinery cost calculator is free to use and can be accessed from any Teagasc advisor

Teagasc also launched a machinery-sharing template a number of years ago as a tool to encourage farmers to share machines or to collaborate with their own machines to reduce costs. This template can be used by anyone including contractors to share some machinery especially that, which may not be in use all year round. This template is available from any Teagasc office.