Growing crops.

K.G.

As i spin around the country i see crop s deteriorating in fields as the weather batters them and i just wonder do they make sense in ireland at all.any time i ve done sums on them the numbers are very tight and would nt take much to slip into a loss.should we stick to grass and just import from countries with better climate/infrastructure for growing crops.

richie123

K.G. wrote: »

As i spin around the country i see crop s deteriorating in fields as the weather batters them and i just wonder do they make sense in ireland at all.any time i ve done sums on them the numbers are very tight and would nt take much to slip into a loss.should we stick to grass and just import from countries with better climate/infrastructure for growing crops.

Yes ...the only thing we grow Savage in this country is grass.

Saw a load of fields of what I assume is barley near me and its not cut yet.

Also loads of spuds vans surprisingly onions.

_Brian

Moisture contents in grain must be high. Wonder are lads having to run dryers after bringing it in.

Those six weeks of torrential rain have taken a serious toll.

K.G.

Wholecropped mine before the break in the weather but not only is the harvest bad but spring crops werent great anyway especially later sown ones due to drought.i myself am thinking of pulling the plug on crops as the numbers are to tight for the risk

Panch18

I don’t grow any crops but there are a couple of things I do know:

1) if a tillage farmer wants land that’s for rent he gets it over any dairy man
2) they have a lot of big new shiny equipment, that comes at a serious cost that they seem to be able to pay for
3) they can handle so many acres now that they only need a small margin to still make plenty of money
4) around here they are getting great yields, now maybe it’s just this area but when you work through the numbers you’d see they are making money
5) I think it would be totally undesirable to be importing all our feed, in fact I don’t think we should be importing anything, it should all be homegrown. What about straw if we did import all the grain

dzer2

Do we frow enough wheat for our own use

Bass Reeves

dzer2 wrote: »

Do we from enough wheat for our own use

In theory yes but most flour is imported that is used in bread making. Irish wheat tends not to be hard enough for flour production. On the barley growing side used for brewing there is a lot of disquiet. For all the brewing and distilling industries we have there seems to be a huge amount of rumors that a lot of the malted grains are imported. One thing that is nearly certain is any porridge you get is from Irish oats.

On the growing side along the east and south coast most tillage is profitable. However any in Galway and Donegal is marginal and weather related risk has to be factored in. If we get 2-3 dry weeks the east and south coast they be ok for harvest. Quality may be reduced but most goes for feed anyway

Panch18

Panch18 wrote: »

I don’t grow any crops but there are a couple of things I do know:

1) if a tillage farmer wants land that’s for rent he gets it over any dairy man
2) they have a lot of big new shiny equipment, that comes at a serious cost that they seem to be able to pay for
3) they can handle so many acres now that they only need a small margin to still make plenty of money
4) around here they are getting great yields, now maybe it’s just this area but when you work through the numbers you’d see they are making money
5) I think it would be totally undesirable to be importing all our feed, in fact I don’t think we should be importing anything, it should all be homegrown. What about straw if we did import all the grain

I have a few acres that a potato farmer wanted to rent from me.
It would have meant ploughing the field at the back of my house. I went with another local who wanted it fro hay and maybe a few sheep if he couldn't get a 2nd cut.

I would have made more on renting for spuds but I wanted to look after my land and have use of it fo the kids

GrasstoMilk

Panch18 wrote: »

I don’t grow any crops but there are a couple of things I do know:

1) if a tillage farmer wants land that’s for rent he gets it over any dairy man
2) they have a lot of big new shiny equipment, that comes at a serious cost that they seem to be able to pay for
3) they can handle so many acres now that they only need a small margin to still make plenty of money
4) around here they are getting great yields, now maybe it’s just this area but when you work through the numbers you’d see they are making money
5) I think it would be totally undesirable to be importing all our feed, in fact I don’t think we should be importing anything, it should all be homegrown. What about straw if we did import all the grain

Scale is what pays. From my reckoning you need 400 acres to bring in the the same money as a 100 cow dairy farmer

jaymla627

GrasstoMilk wrote: »

Scale is what pays. From my reckoning you need 400 acres to bring in the the same money as a 100 cow dairy farmer

Sfp is what keeps the lights on with the large units, not scale....
Local tillage man is setting us a 33 acre field here for the next 3 years for grass and another 30 acres yearly for maize, suits both of us perfect as he's getting a guaranteed rental income plus all land is getting slurry/dung, means I've a guaranteed supply of feed and a good block of land to export slurry too

GrasstoMilk

jaymla627 wrote: »

Sfp is what keeps the lights on with the large units, not scale....
Local tillage man is setting us a 33 acre field here for the next 3 years for grass and another 30 acres yearly for maize, suits both of us perfect as he's getting a guaranteed rental income plus all land is getting slurry/dung, means I've a guaranteed supply of feed and a good block of land to export slurry too

He's winning more than you I would say. You'll get a good first year of grass off it and then itll collapse due to lack of organic matter and no background N. Be 5 years before its growing grass right and that provided you put over the recommended amount of N P K on

jaymla627

GrasstoMilk wrote: »

He's winning more than you I would say. You'll get a good first year of grass off it and then itll collapse due to lack of organic matter and no background N. Be 5 years before its growing grass right and that provided you put over the recommended amount of N P K on

Will be getting plenty of slurry to keep it ticking over, its good ground same man is all min-till doesn't do continuous cropping either soil tests yearly and ground is 3 for p and 3 for k with ph perfect , its dry ground and will be a serious relief valve here in the spring as usually cant travel half of the home farm here with tanker in a wet year so slurry usually gets dumped on ground that I should be grazing was putting slurry out on it Friday and not leaving a track if you drove into 70% of fields on the grazing block with tanker loaded at the minute you wouldn't be getting back out of the field alot to be said for having land beside you when at silage our slurry, zero point in getting more suitable land 7-8 miles away and whoring the road day and night

GrasstoMilk

jaymla627 wrote: »

Will be getting plenty of slurry to keep it ticking over, its good ground same man is all min-till doesn't do continuous cropping either soil tests yearly and ground is 3 for p and 3 for k with ph perfect , its dry ground and will be a serious relief valve here in the spring as usually cant travel half of the home farm here with tanker in a wet year so slurry usually gets dumped on ground that I should be grazing was putting slurry out on it Friday and not leaving a track if you drove into 70% of fields on the grazing block with tanker loaded at the minute you wouldn't be getting back out of the field alot to be said for having land beside you when at silage our slurry, zero point in getting more suitable land 7-8 miles away and whoring the road day and night

Sounds like a good deal.for you so jay. That sort of land isnt easy come across, most of the tillage around me is continuous melting barley.
Cant have dung or slurry spread or protein will be too high for it to pass

K.G.

jaymla627 wrote: »

Will be getting plenty of slurry to keep it ticking over, its good ground same man is all min-till doesn't do continuous cropping either soil tests yearly and ground is 3 for p and 3 for k with ph perfect , its dry ground and will be a serious relief valve here in the spring as usually cant travel half of the home farm here with tanker in a wet year so slurry usually gets dumped on ground that I should be grazing was putting slurry out on it Friday and not leaving a track if you drove into 70% of fields on the grazing block with tanker loaded at the minute you wouldn't be getting back out of the field alot to be said for having land beside you when at silage our slurry, zero point in getting more suitable land 7-8 miles away and whoring the road day and night

Sounds like a scenario we might be looking for order to deal with derogations absence. Is the plan to reduce meal fed or is just to push yields higher

jaymla627

K.G. wrote: »

Sounds like a scenario we might be looking for order to deal with derogations absence. Is the plan to reduce meal fed or is just to push yields higher

Numbers increasing so meal fed will stay the same in our around the 2 ton mark, I reckon from next year will just house year round at night and out during the day from March to October, pushing on for 700 kilos of ms delivered stocked in the future at over 5 cows/ha on milking block so grazed grass is really only going to be 40% of a cows diet here

jaymla627

GrasstoMilk wrote: »

Sounds like a good deal.for you so jay. That sort of land isnt easy come across, most of the tillage around me is continuous melting barley.
Cant have dung or slurry spread or protein will be too high for it to pass

150 acres beside us that has been continuous tillage barley for past 20 years and rented out as con acre wouldn't take it as a present to rent if offered you"d need to be paid money the first 7 years to straighten it out any bit

Waffletraktor

K.G. wrote: »

Sounds like a scenario we might be looking for order to deal with derogations absence. Is the plan to reduce meal fed or is just to push yields higher

You think cheap gm feeds are going to last?

K.G.

Waffletraktor wrote: »

You think cheap gm feeds are going to last?

Havent a.clue but how long are we going to wait for that ship to sail in.i woildnt bank on alot of countries getting holier than though.its only a hand of european s give a s##t about that

Waffletraktor

K.G. wrote: »

Havent a.clue but how long are we going to wait for that ship to sail in.i woildnt bank on alot of countries getting holier than though.its only a hand of european s give a s##t about that

Janusz has already started to build the box, now we wait for Pandora to open it.

Gawddawggonnit

K.G. wrote: »

As i spin around the country i see crop s deteriorating in fields as the weather batters them and i just wonder do they make sense in ireland at all.any time i ve done sums on them the numbers are very tight and would nt take much to slip into a loss.should we stick to grass and just import from countries with better climate/infrastructure for growing crops.

Absolutely K.G.
When those feckin beef men didn’t fall by the wayside and free up land for the dairymen, sure the tillage men might fold...you’d never know. Here’s hoping.

We’re drawing duck shyte from a customer atm. He’s paying me €300/load of slurry for proper disposal. Easy money.
Friend of mine is charging €500/load...happy days.
Best thing is that it’s a growth industry with a bright future.

Beggar thy neighbor thread lads...

K.G.

Gawddawggonnit wrote: »

Absolutely K.G.
When those feckin beef men didn’t fall by the wayside and free up land for the dairymen, sure the tillage men might fold...you’d never know. Here’s hoping.

We’re drawing duck shyte from a customer atm. He’s paying me €300/load of slurry for proper disposal. Easy money.
Friend of mine is charging €500/load...happy days.
Best thing is that it’s a growth industry with a bright future.

Beggar thy neighbor thread lads...

Relax a bit there dawg,i wonder would you be so gungho if you had fields of cerals to be harvested in flooded west cork.

Gawddawggonnit

K.G. wrote: »

Relax a bit there dawg,i wonder would you be so gungho if you had fields of cerals to be harvested in flooded west cork.

I’ve been to that festival. Got the T-shirts for ‘85 and ‘86. Ploughed down wbarley in ‘86 like every other tillage farmer...and I’m still around, and so are the other tillage farmers.


Believe me you’re not helping the sector calling for the industry to be abandoned and feed to be imported from the Americas. Jesus wept.

K.G.

Gawddawggonnit wrote: »

I’ve been to that festival. Got the T-shirts for ‘85 and ‘86. Ploughed down wbarley in ‘86 like every other tillage farmer...and I’m still around, and so are the other tillage farmers.


Believe me you’re not helping the sector calling for the industry to be abandoned and feed to be imported from the Americas. Jesus wept.

Well i think im reflecting what thoughts are flying combine and tractor cabs at the moment.you made a comment abit ago about the"inbuilt savings of home grown cereals " and im one of the few still living that dream. There is nothing in it and on rented ground it just dosent make sense.sometimes i get the impression that you think we are all sheep following teagasc blindly whereas the reality is fellas are looking at the current account at the end of the year and saying this dosent add up.

Injuryprone

jaymla627 wrote: »

Numbers increasing so meal fed will stay the same in our around the 2 ton mark, I reckon from next year will just house year round at night and out during the day from March to October, pushing on for 700 kilos of ms delivered stocked in the future at over 5 cows/ha on milking block so grazed grass is really only going to be 40% of a cows diet here

Do you envisage down the line getting into trouble with QA or derogation with this move indoors? I see some farmers on Twitter who are full-time indoors and I often wonder how they get away with it. It hardly conforms with our greener than green image

jaymla627

Injuryprone wrote: »

Do you envisage down the line getting into trouble with QA or derogation with this move indoors? I see some farmers on Twitter who are full-time indoors and I often wonder how they get away with it. It hardly conforms with our greener than green image

Look at the current state of play in new Zealand the government is basically going to make intensive pasture based dairying cows out 365 on grass and fodder crops unworkable, I'm factoring in that a slurry only digester will be going in on-farm here within the next 5 years to future-proof the place from whatever new wonderful nitrate limits and stocking rate restrictions are going to be forced on lads, I'd be reckoning if you are milking in the future your probably going to need 2 acres a cow to cover yourself for nitrates

K.G.

Well the two fields of cereals that were the first thing i saw every morning (not my own) have finally been harvested.the last month i have watched these 2 fields deteriorating in front of my eyes and were the reason i started the thread.whatever about anywhere else west cork is not suited to growing tillage-constant dampness,small fields and light soil covers.looking at those 2 fields the last month would depress anyone and considered they are rented i cant see where the profit is

yosemitesam1

K.G. wrote: »

Well the two fields of cereals that were the first thing i saw every morning (not my own) have finally been harvested.the last month i have watched these 2 fields deteriorating in front of my eyes and were the reason i started the thread.whatever about anywhere else west cork is not suited to growing tillage-constant dampness,small fields and light soil covers.looking at those 2 fields the last month would depress anyone and considered they are rented i cant see where the profit is

If someone wanted to they could bring up about some dairy farmers working for the banks, not able to provide feed for their cows etc...
Every sector will go through challenging times