Crops
The Fundamentals of Soils Part 4: How to Improve Soil Health
The Fundamentals of Soils Part 4: How to Improve Soil Health This is this final episode of four for The Tillage Edge’s special soil series and this week we return to Professor Mike McLaughlin, from the University of Adelaide, to chat about soil health and how soils can be improved. Mike discusses […]
26 January 2023
Crops costs and returns 2023 available
Crops costs and returns 2023 available Teagasc tillage specialists Ciaran Collins and Shay Phelan have recently published the Teagasc Crops Costs and Returns booklet for 2023. The document is intended as an indicative guide to crop margins; however land suitability, rotation, risk avoidance and husbandry skills must also be considered. As well […]
25 January 2023
CAN versus protected urea
CAN versus protected urea There is increasing interest among tillage farmers in switching from CAN to protected urea this season. Based on current fertiliser prices, there are significant financial benefits to using protected urea. Currently protected urea costs 30% less than CAN. The environmental benefits of protected urea are well proven with […]
25 January 2023
Fertiliser spreader calibration: getting ready for the coming season
Fertiliser spreader calibration: getting ready for the coming season Teagasc, in association with Carberry, organised a number of events on fertiliser spreader setup and calibration in West Cork recently. John McNamara, Carbery joint programme coordinator, along with Aoife Healy O’Driscoll, farm sustainability lead at Carbery Group, invited Francis Quigley, Teagasc farm machinery […]
24 January 2023
Spring beans a sustainable and profitable crop in 2023
Spring beans a sustainable and profitable crop in 2023 With current high nitrogen (N) fertiliser prices every effort is being explored to reduce fertiliser N costs while maintaining grain yields and crop margins. Growing spring beans offers the opportunity to reduce total farm N requirements as the crop only requires phosphorus (P) […]
19 January 2023
The Fundamentals of Soils Part 3: Soil Testing
The Fundamentals of Soils Part 3: Soil Testing This is the third episode of four for The Tillage Edge’s special soil series and this week, Dr Karen Daly, a soil scientist from Teagasc, joins Michael Hennessy to chat about the types of soil test used to measure critical nutrients and the tests […]
19 January 2023
Tips to reduce risk in what’s set to be a testing year for tillage farmers
Tips to reduce risk in what’s set to be a testing year for tillage farmers The recent Teagasc Outlook Webinar 2023 makes for some interesting reading from a tillage farm point of view. While the average incomes achieved on tillage farms were good in 2022, the outlook for harvest 2023 is a […]
19 January 2023
Wild potato genes: the future of late blight control
Wild potato genes: the future of late blight control Researchers are studying the genes of wild potato species in the hopes of finding a novel approach to mitigating crop losses caused by the persistent late blight disease. The destructive potential of the late blight crop disease pathogen Phytophthora infestans impacted and shaped […]
16 January 2023
Spring sown winter wheat
Spring sown winter wheat The Teagasc harvest report published in November 2022 predicted that approximately 55,000 ha which indicates that there is possibly some winter wheat seed still in bags on farms. While there were some limited opportunities to drill in late November most of this seed is likely to be still […]
12 January 2023
The Fundamentals of Soils Part 2: Soil Nutrients
The Fundamentals of Soils Part 2: Soil Nutrients The second part of The Tillage Edge’s special soil series sees Professor Mike McLaughlin continue his in-depth look at soil and its functionality with nutrients. Prof. McLaughlin discusses potash and how it can interact with soils and plants, and he also talks about nutrient […]
12 January 2023