Signpost: Regenerative practices transform our soils — and our pocket
Darren Allen, tillage farmer pictured sifting through the rock soil where radishes have been planted on his farm in Ballymaloe near Shanagarry in Cork to absorb and store the nitrogen left over from the summer crops. Picture: Chani Anderson
With the harvest well and truly over and the combine put to bed, autumn planting for the 2027 harvest has been completed in Ballymaloe.
With rotational considerations and the emphasis on first wheats perhaps still offering the best opportunity of making a profit after a break crop, despite the exceptionally high growing costs, I have decided to give winter wheat another chance after my break crops of beans and the pea-bean combi crop.
You will recall in my last article I reported on the results of my experimenting with three different establishment methods last year. Based on that, even though it was only one year, I have followed the better returns gained from the Erth Panbuster, followed by the Weaving disc drill to plant all of my winter wheat this autumn.
The thousand-grain weight of the seed was very low this year at 45 grams, so I planted accordingly at 150kg/ha to achieve my target plant stand.
I’ve moved my planting date forward from mid-October to the end of September as, with the Weaving drill method, there is less nitrogen mineralisation due to the lack of soil cultivation.
The upside of this is we planted into super conditions and warm soils. But with this exceptionally mild autumn, I hope I don’t get caught with BYDV in the advanced crop.
I’ve stopped using insecticide for several years now as I felt it was doing more harm than good, so we will have to wait and see how it plays out.
I’m in discussions to secure the fertiliser required for next year, as there is some uncertainty around availability and price, but it’s hard to get excited with the high price on offer.
Rotation-wise, I plan to plant a decent area of protein beans for 2027, as the protein payment has been good, but it will have the added bonus of not needing to buy so much chemical fertiliser nitrogen — good for the pocket and good for the environment.
To satisfy the three-crop rule, the plan is for the remainder to be sown to spring malting barley, hoping that the poor malting financials of the 2026 harvest will not be repeated.
The cover crops took very well considering the later planting date due to the exceptionally dry summer. We delayed sowing, like many others, as we felt there was no point until some moisture arrived at the end of August.
We are working with a Teagasc project currently to assess biomass production over winter and nitrogen uptake from the soil. How we use the learnings will be interesting.
Although I’m still learning, I’ve seen a huge transformation in my soils, and my pocket through using regenerative practices.
I see an abundance of worms, and the colour of my soil has even changed. I’m putting this down to the reduced tillage, reduced synthetic nitrogen and keeping a living root in the soil using cover crops and straw chopping.
As with anything in life, you have to try different things and be prepared to change to learn and make a difference!
- Signpost tillage advisors: John Mahon and Ciara O’Donovan
