Harvest 2026: The results are in for Signpost Tillage farmer, Darren Allen
Signpost Tillage farmer, Darren Allen provides an update from his farm in Cork, focusing crop yields and the performance of some on-farm trials.
Harvest 2026 is more or less finished, and incredibly early at that. I don’t ever recall having the combine parked up and finished (apart from the beans) at the beginning of August when some years we mightn’t even have started.
While the lovely dry weather made the task so much easier to organise and helped reduce drying charges, I, like all tillage farmers around the country, suffered reduced yields this harvest due to drought and a shortened growing season, although not as badly affected as those farming in the southeast from what I hear.
Winter wheat establishment system experiment – the results
As you might recall from my other articles this year, I have been watching and waiting with bated breath to see how my experiment with establishment systems in winter wheat would turn out.
I basically set my wheat with a standard plough and one pass as normal on the 15th of October, and alongside it had two blocks sown on 26th September, one with my Weaving direct drill, and the other received a run of an Erth Panbuster before being sown with the Weaving drill.
These were sown earlier as advised by my BASE colleagues as is the practice with reduced cultivation establishment. All have looked similar in the field all year and have received the same inputs.
Costs have risen substantially since planting, especially fertiliser and fuel, so my thinking is if I could harvest similar yields then my profits will rise with the minimum cultivation systems.
Well, the results are in and yields were very close to what I expected.
Using the plough and one pass with home-saved seed as a control, it yielded 3.93 t/ac. The Erth/Weaving drill (min-tilled) yield was almost identical at 3.97 t/ac, while the Weaving direct drilled was 4.20 t/ac. To put this in financial figures, using my own machinery and a wheat price per tonne of €200, the min-tilled saved me €42/ac for the same yield, while the direct drilled saved me €72/ac for a 7% yield increase (worth €54/ac), equivalent to over an extra half tonne per acre if ploughed.
Two observations I have from this are:
- That this is from only one year, and one field, and where the winter wheat was sown would have been some of my heaviest (more water retentive) soil. You would need several years data to be fair to all systems, as I did get to set the wheat in ideal conditions for all, but it did show that savings can be made if conditions allow.
- More worryingly, average yields of 4 t/ac in first wheats are not paying for the risk involved. Other crop types in this rotational slot might leave me more profit. Either the costs of growing winter wheat will have to reduce, the price per tonne will have to rise or higher yields will have to be achieved. Sure, yields of 5 t/ac are being got on some farms, hopefully not at any environmental cost with high chemical nitrogen rates, but not consistently across all fields each year. It has become a very costly crop to grow.
Spring barley trials
You might also recall I experimented with a small area of spring barley where I didn’t apply any fungicide but supplemented with some biological alternatives. The barley yielded exceptionally well at 3.31 t/ac where the fungicide had been applied, and 2.30 t/ac where it was omitted. This was an extra tonne per acre which converted into an almost five-fold investment gain from a modest fungicide spend this year. In fairness, in another year and at a lower yield the difference might not have been so stark, but it is getting the consistency right and a level of insurance to protect my profit which I am looking at all the time.
I did have two loads fail for malting which really hurts when you try to do everything right. Maybe there is an argument to growing higher yielding feed barley when there is lack of demand for malting, however I do like growing the crop and get good support locally so will most likely persist with it.
The harvest of combinable crops is almost complete and for this episode of The Tillage Edge, Michael Hennessy speaks with Tillage Signpost farmers Tom Tierney, Kildare, Don Somers, Wexford, and Tom Barry, Cork, about their 2026 harvests:
Pea and bean intercrops
Elsewhere on the farm, the combi crop of peas and beans came in at 2.1 t/ac, which I am really happy with considering its early harvest date and it allows plenty of time to get a stale seedbed for weed germination before considering winter wheat as the next crop. With the protein payment it will, for the third time since I began growing them, outperform winter wheat financially.
Spring beans are almost ready and will most likely be cut by the time you are reading this, but from reports of what is cut to date there will be no records broken.
With all the talk of a serious fodder crisis with livestock farmers, I would reiterate the farming organisations message that there are plentiful supplies of quality Irish grown cereals and straw available on your doorstep. There is no need to import alternative feeds or straw from outside the island. Support your own local industry.
Darren Allen is a Signpost Tillage Farmer working closely with Signpost Tillage Advisor, John Mahon and Teagasc Tillage Advisor, Ciara O’Donovan.
The above first appeared in the Farming Examiner as part of a Signpost Programme update.