Spring crops 2014

F.D

Hi All, we usually do some tillage along with our beef,
this year i am getting it hard to justify sowing anything every year we only break even or make a little profit after the contractor cost and merchants get there slice of the pie
The only plus is we have the straw,
I see a lot of people locally put land back in grass after the harvest last year

so the question
Is it worth doing, is there any prospect of the price of grain go up
are there many more on here pulling the plug on it this year and going back to grass

larrymiller

F.D wrote: »

Hi All, we usually do some tillage along with our beef,
this year i am getting it hard to justify sowing anything every year we only break even or make a little profit after the contractor cost and merchants get there slice of the pie
The only plus is we have the straw,
I see a lot of people locally put land back in grass after the harvest last year

so the question
Is it worth doing, is there any prospect of the price of grain go up
are there many more on here pulling the plug on it this year and going back to grass

Never really seems to be much tillage talk here. I don't know why.
I don't think prices will be much better this year, they are an over supply of grain in the world due to a bumper harvest last year. But who knows what's going to happen.
I never can understand how lads can pay 200 an acre a year to rent ground when the price is so low recently.
I'm sorry I haven't really answered much of your question.

I haven't seen many round here pulling the plug YET!! But what are the other options? A shambles of a beef sector? (Which I'm in) or sheep? Or go and borrow a lot of money and milk gold

nashmach

Only saving grace is the reductions in the prices of fertiliser and seed thus far but margins are still very much under pressure even on owned ground.

Won't be a millionaire anyway

Cran

F.D wrote: »

I see a lot of people locally put land back in grass after the harvest last year

Opposite here everyone seems to breaking more ground every year for tillage. Finished with tillage about 5 years ago, would take a lot to get me back into it just never saw any real profit or opportunity since beet finished.:o

F.D

We were only sowing a small acerage until we built up the stock numbers
last year with the bad growth we ran up a huge fertilizer bill trying to keep grass growing, this year i'm thinking more grass and less fertilizer over the whole farm will leave more in our pocket as small as margins are on the cattle side too... if we had our own way to plough,sow,spray and fert, there might be a bit in it, for full scale tillage men the costs of fertilizer and sprays must be eyewatering and coming to a point where its unsustainable at the price there getting for grain

larrymiller

Funny doh how a lot of tillage farmers are sowing massive amount of grain just for the big sfp and get away with it. I think they should be capped at a limit of sfp that can be claimed!

newholland mad

If i was in your boots i wouldnt bother with tillage, several reasons imv buying small quantities of chemicals you will get rode no matter how much shopping around u do, when totally depending on a contractor timeing of imputs will suffer in a broken season ie. 1 week late with a disease spray in broken weather could cost 1/2 tonne never mind when it comes to harvesting but im not saying that its cheaper to own your own but its important to get timeings right.
If you live close to a tillage area 2k will buy a lot of straw but wont go far into a contractors bill. Another option do a straw for muck deal if theres a stockless tillage farmer nearby, most will jump at the idea i know i would but around here there is no stock.

micraX

Going to be putting in a good bit of corn this year.
New 3meter mascio powerharrow and grain drill arrived Friday, currently finishing off the front grubber atm. Going to get true some ground!

larrymiller

micraX wrote: »

Going to be putting in a good bit of corn this year.
New 3meter mascio powerharrow and grain drill arrived Friday, currently finishing off the front grubber atm. Going to get true some ground!

Would want to be a fair bit a ground to be buying that stuff new.
If you don't mind saying how much acres are you planting?

F.D

newholland mad wrote: »

If i was in your boots i wouldnt bother with tillage, several reasons imv buying small quantities of chemicals you will get rode no matter how much shopping around u do, when totally depending on a contractor timeing of imputs will suffer in a broken season ie. 1 week late with a disease spray in broken weather could cost 1/2 tonne never mind when it comes to harvesting but im not saying that its cheaper to own your own but its important to get timeings right.
If you live close to a tillage area 2k will buy a lot of straw but wont go far into a contractors bill. Another option do a straw for muck deal if theres a stockless tillage farmer nearby, most will jump at the idea i know i would but around here there is no stock.

Agree with you on so many things in fairness to the contractor he does a good job and he does not miss much we always get top yields, but for 20 acres like you say you could buy a lot of straw around, as for the muck i could spread it on ground i would reseed every year and cut my fert usage a bit more...... i might get the 20 acres ploughed and put half into grass and half corn i know its not worth a lot but at least the corn will pay some bit towards the ploughing costs....... back to the stockless tillage men if i was had our whole farm in tillage i would still bed down a heap of cattle over the winter and use maize or grass as a break crop and use all the dung to keep the ground right, even if the cattle made broke even it would be worth something,

micraX

larrymiller wrote: »

Would want to be a fair bit a ground to be buying that stuff new.
If you don't mind saying how much acres are you planting?

Ah the mascio gear very well priced and top quality.
200 acres anyway, still enquiring about some ground.

grazeaway

Used to do a mix of tillage back in the day, mostly veg and some corn. Only bit we do now is fodder beet for the cows. Was going to do a bit more and cut back on the cattle numbers a few years back but was hard to justify it at the time.

A couple of my neighbours are still going a mix and using the stubble for out wintering lighter stock. Lad up the road does 20 ac a year, 5ac of beet and 15 of corn. Keeps the straw for feeding and bedding for the calves each winter with his sucklers in the shed. Yearlings are out wintered on the stubble and beet. Stubble can be used to spread slurry when things get tight like at the mo and the grass land can't be crossed with a tanker.

micraX

grazeaway wrote: »

Used to do a mix of tillage back in the day, mostly veg and some corn. Only bit we do now is fodder beet for the cows. Was going to do a bit more and cut back on the cattle numbers a few years back but was hard to justify it at the time.

A couple of my neighbours are still going a mix and using the stubble for out wintering lighter stock. Lad up the road does 20 ac a year, 5ac of beet and 15 of corn. Keeps the straw for feeding and bedding for the calves each winter with his sucklers in the shed. Yearlings are out wintered on the stubble and beet. Stubble can be used to spread slurry when things get tight like at the mo and the grass land can't be crossed with a tanker.

What veg you grow?

sheebadog

micraX wrote: »

Ah the mascio gear very well priced and top quality.
200 acres anyway, still enquiring about some ground.

Well priced. Yes.

Don't know about top quality... but if you have no stones it will fine.

grazeaway

micraX wrote: »

What veg you grow?

Did a spuds and also Used to supply the food factory in midleton when it was there. Carrots, parsnips mostly, did peas and turnips from time to time too.

There was a time where there was loads of veg grown all over east cork but I see very little nowadays since the food factory closed and many of the smaller growers got squeezed out of the market.

Grow a small veg patch at the back of the parents place just for ourselves now.

newholland mad

sheebadog wrote: »

Well priced. Yes.

Don't know about top quality... but if you have no stones it will fine.

+1

Blue Holland

sheebadog wrote: »

Well priced. Yes.

Don't know about top quality... but if you have no stones it will fine.

Hard to beet the kuhn for the stones.

newholland mad

Blue Holland wrote: »

Hard to beet the kuhn for the stones.

kuhn best followed by pottinger or thats what most of the contractors around have and LOTS of stones

larrymiller

micraX wrote: »

Ah the mascio gear very well priced and top quality.
200 acres anyway, still enquiring about some ground.

Ah yeah i was thinking you must be doing a bit, would you not be wary of the low price grain vs high rent costs?

micraX

sheebadog wrote: »

Well priced. Yes.

Don't know about top quality... but if you have no stones it will fine.

What experience do you have with them in stoney conditions? Most of our ground is sandy or loamy. So should be grand about 15 acres are heavy clay and one 10 acre field is on a hill so quite stoney, but I do have the link box on the front of the tractor ploughing and pick out most big stones I see and we go stone picking every once and a while so it's not near as bad as it used to be.
We'll see how it goes, have run mascio rotovaters here for a good while and no trouble.

micraX

larrymiller wrote: »

Ah yeah i was thinking you must be doing a bit, would you not be wary of the low price grain vs high rent costs?

Sure you get Arial aid off it anyway. Lot of lads thinking that way so putting in less. So there could be higher prices for spring barley this year.

larrymiller

micraX wrote: »

Sure you get Arial aid off it anyway. Lot of lads thinking that way so putting in less. So there could be higher prices for spring barley this year.

I hope your right!

Blue Holland

F.D wrote: »

Hi All, we usually do some tillage along with our beef,
this year i am getting it hard to justify sowing anything every year we only break even or make a little profit after the contractor cost and merchants get there slice of the pie
The only plus is we have the straw,
I see a lot of people locally put land back in grass after the harvest last year

so the question
Is it worth doing, is there any prospect of the price of grain go up
are there many more on here pulling the plug on it this year and going back to grass

Why not keep some of the grain as well and cut your feed bill, crimp or urea treat it.
Sow about 150-180 acres here, do the work ourselves apart from combining. Spraying and spreading fert about all there is any big saving on over getting a contractor. Yes you save a small bit on plough and sowing but not going make you up.
Biggest advantage i see with having plough and one pass is much more inclined to reseed.
As for prices rising between now and harvest i follow this fella bit for prices and what he was saying on the 25th not looking good: http://nogger-noggersblog.blogspot.ie/

freedominacup

F.D wrote: »

Hi All, we usually do some tillage along with our beef,
this year i am getting it hard to justify sowing anything every year we only break even or make a little profit after the contractor cost and merchants get there slice of the pie
The only plus is we have the straw,
I see a lot of people locally put land back in grass after the harvest last year

so the question
Is it worth doing, is there any prospect of the price of grain go up
are there many more on here pulling the plug on it this year and going back to grass

Why not Wholecrop it? Serious feed for finishing cattle.

F.D

Blue Holland wrote: »

Why not keep some of the grain as well and cut your feed bill, crimp or urea treat it.
Sow about 150-180 acres here, do the work ourselves apart from combining. Spraying and spreading fert about all there is any big saving on over getting a contractor. Yes you save a small bit on plough and sowing but not going make you up.
Biggest advantage i see with having plough and one pass is much more inclined to reseed.
As for prices rising between now and harvest i follow this fella bit for prices and what he was saying on the 25th not looking good: http://nogger-noggersblog.blogspot.ie/

Only reason i havent thought about doing the above is i have no where to store it, there was an old loft here but its not in use anymore. would you need much space to hold 60 ton?
the other point being would the saving on keeping it your self vs buying ration cover the cost of it?

F.D

freedominacup wrote: »

Why not Wholecrop it? Serious feed for finishing cattle.

Could be an option, is there much difference in the managment of it, could keep half for grain and straw and wholecrop the other half

freedominacup

F.D wrote: »

Could be an option, is there much difference in the managment of it, could keep half for grain and straw and wholecrop the other half

For half of 20 acres proably not worth the hassle of different management. The only difference is you can push a bit harder with fert because lodging is not as big an issue as you will be cutting much sooner. Not a licience to horse on a lot extra but chasing the last half tonne can pay better than with combined crops as you know yourself that extra bit often gets left in the field with lodging or poor harvest conditions. We finished bulls on wholecrop plus 5.5 kgs maize based ration last autumn. Much more viable than lads talking about 12+ kgs of meal ad-lib.

grazeaway

Reseeded with arable silage last year, 1st time since we moved to silage bales about 10 years ago and was very happy with the results, was worried about the weeds but they weren't an issue when I came to feeding. Won't be re seeding this year but will next year and will do the same again. If you are rotating fields of reseeding over time then a field of barely is not that bad and idea as long as you can take that field out of your system for the year.

Feed wise unless you can dry and store grain for feeding then crimping or cutting in silage is the best option for it.

F.D

Thanks for the advice so far, Rang the mill yesterday All they are quoting is 120 to 135 a ton max for barley, all we can hope for if we want a better price than that is a crop failure somwhere else in the world....... i reckon i will sow arabale silage at least the grass will be coming up after its cut

larrymiller

F.D wrote: »

Thanks for the advice so far, Rang the mill yesterday All they are quoting is 120 to 135 a ton max for barley, all we can hope for if we want a better price than that is a crop failure somwhere else in the world....... i reckon i will sow arabale silage at least the grass will be coming up after its cut

Even with a failure there's still a lot of last years stuff left

Blue Holland

F.D wrote: »

Thanks for the advice so far, Rang the mill yesterday All they are quoting is 120 to 135 a ton max for barley, all we can hope for if we want a better price than that is a crop failure somwhere else in the world....... i reckon i will sow arabale silage at least the grass will be coming up after its cut

Did you ask them what there looking for rolled barley?

F.D

Blue Holland wrote: »

Did you ask them what there looking for rolled barley?

No But i can be sure its a lot more than we are getting paid to supply them

freedominacup

F.D wrote: »

Thanks for the advice so far, Rang the mill yesterday All they are quoting is 120 to 135 a ton max for barley, all we can hope for if we want a better price than that is a crop failure somwhere else in the world....... i reckon i will sow arabale silage at least the grass will be coming up after its cut

Arable won't blow wind on wholecrop. We laid out the ground as if for reseeding and sowed the barley. Cut that first week August and direct drilled grass the next day. We were grazing this on first of October which was much later than expected due to drought. We got an excellent take on grass seed.

We also did a similar area of undersown and were grazing this around the same time after 2 cuts. It wouldn't be the same type or quality of feeding but we were also fairly pleased with it. I am advocating wholecrop because it's always a benefit to have an alternative forage. The undersown is too similar to grass.