to sow or not

alleyb

The out look for the current year isn't looking good for cereal growers.is there anyone out there with a positive view to offer .or should i head to done deal with the tillage equipment

porscheman

It is not looking very good because you can buy wheat today on the futures market at €120 ton

roadtripman

alleyb wrote: »

The out look for the current year isn't looking good for cereal growers.is there anyone out there with a positive view to offer .or should i head to done deal with the tillage equipment

Still its better than last year:
Liffey Mills have guaranteed a minimum price of €100/t which is more than last harvest and a hell of alot better than the €85/t being talked about.
Fertilizer prices are well back on last spring.
Seed prices are back a bit aswell.

There will be no fortune made from cereals this year but on good fields a profit can be made.
You should do a budget for each field that you have and only plant the ones that will leave you a margin and put the low yielding/high cost fields in grass for a few years, it will build up fertility while bringing in a few pound from grass/hay sales to stock farmers. Dont sow fields that wont leave a margin, it will only wear out your tillage equipment.

tomdeere

what would be the best variety to sow for a high return in straw

planning

I was at a meeting tonight in Cork for the new Grain Ireland group. I am delighted to see people are taking some action to try and bring the grain sector back to profit. I was very disappointed with the attendance of 35 or so. I can't understand grain farmers with the years of losing money and the year going forward not looking to good it is now growers should be getting together to fight for a descent margin. When I looked around the room I saw a few people I knew but all the people I could think off that didn't attend, I was so annoyed because these are the people that start moaning about grain price and still sit on their hole and do nothing. I am fully supportive of them and hope more will. I am sick of the merchants always having their margin are we not the biggest gamblers off all spending 100's of euro per acre growing grain guaranteed no price and throw the weather on top off that.

nilhg

Most of the stubble ground in this area seems to have been ploughed in the last few days despite all the gloom around about, though the reports are that seed and fert sales are slow, there could be quite an amount of farm saved seed about which might explain alot.

We have only a few acres to sow, stuff that was too wet to sow last backend or patches that died out in the floods, I was lucky, I sold a fair lump of next years harvest forward at €141 dried before we had it in the ground......


Really it's up to people to do their sums and be realistic about possible yields and costs, there is no margin for error.