Three systems, one goal: reducing costs in a €200/t grain market

With fuel prices soaring, Darren Allen of Ballymaloe Farm sees opportunities for regenerative farming methods to pay their way

Darren Allen: 'All tillage farmers have to critically look at all costs to grow their crops in present times, where grain prices remain relatively low at about €200/t while growing costs continue to creep upwards.' Picture: Chani Anderson

In my last article in early February, I mentioned I established my winter wheat last autumn by three different methods: direct drilled, minimum tillage and conventional plough and one-pass. 

My motivation for trying this again this year remains the same — that all tillage farmers have to critically look at all costs to grow their crops in present times, where grain prices remain relatively low at about €200/t while growing costs continue to creep upwards, and that’s before we ever had the recent crisis of hugely inflated fertiliser and diesel prices due to the war in Iran.

I firmly believe savings can be made, and I have my costings for each. I estimate the direct drill this autumn was saving me up to the value of 0.5t/ha over the conventional plough and one-pass.

So realistically, if yields can be comparable at harvest, then this saving goes straight into my pocket. We hope to be able to accurately record the yields for each establishment method and see if this will follow through.

Certainly, looking at the winter wheat here today in April, you would find it difficult to visually see any difference in any of the systems. 

They are all at GS31, have received growth regulator and have a nice, healthy colour, having received 33 m³/ha of pig slurry in early March using an umbilical system. TerraCan will be the main chemical N fertiliser split, and I will follow this up with a foliar application of melted urea for the final split.

We were very happy with the pre-emergence herbicide for weed control last autumn, however, we did have to return to a few fields for a spring clean-up, where we used Alister Flex for some grass weeds and Zypar for volunteer bean control.

So far, we haven’t seen any yellow rust appear, but from what I’m told, most of the current varieties are susceptible, so I may keep an eye out for it and be prepared to spray.

We strip tilled in our beans and combi crop pea/bean mix after St Patrick's Day, which was later than planned. They went in in good conditions between the showers, were rolled, and we managed to get out with the pre-emergence herbicide Nirvana, which we used at full rate as I’m struggling to control a few difficult broadleaved weeds. I’m also buying into the idea that break crops are a great chance to control problem weeds with different chemistry.

I’ve some spring barley planted with the plough and one pass, Amity malting barley for Dairygold, and I’ll plant the remainder using minimum tillage establishment when dry enough in order to compare the profitability of both systems, like the winter wheat.

As mentioned earlier this year in my article, these are in fields which were in cover crop since last August, and I was contemplating when to burn off with glyphosate the large biomass which had grown over the mild winter. 

As it turned out, it was nearly March before I could get into the fields, with all the rain and wind, but we seemed to get a good kill and dieback, so I am not over-worried about the green bridge effect of carryover disease and BYDV into the spring barley.

While I’m delighted with the work the cover crops are doing for me on soil health and biology, I’m still very nervous about cutting back on my N application amount as there seems to be no clear evidence of what quantity of N is released back to the following crop. I will continue to ask for expert opinions, however, there seems to be little agreement or trial work on this up to now.

Finally, there are several EIPs which have recently started, which I’m following with interest. Teagasc has the ‘SoilCycle’ EIP designed to get the most from organic manures on cereal crops. 

BASE Ireland’s ‘Project BASELINE’ EIP is dedicated to showcasing regenerative agriculture in Ireland, and SECAD Partnership CLG’s ‘The Arable Coast Environment (ACE)’ EIP, which is designed to enhance habitats for biodiversity and wildlife on arable farmland along the Irish coast from South Cork to Wexford.

• Darren Allen is a Signpost tillage farmer based at Ballymaloe Farm, Ballymaloe, Shanagarry, Co Cork. His Signpost tillage adviser is John Mahon and Teagasc tillage adviser is Ciara O’Donovan