Teagasc tillage specialist, Shay Phelan, has confirmed that most winter oilseed rape crops are looking well at the present time.
The warmer than average temperatures in October and November has meant that “crops have continued to grow and canopies are bigger now than normal, especially in the early sown crops”, according to Phelan.
“Most have received fungicides and herbicides to date however, there are a number of crops where growers have not put on any broadleaf herbicides yet or are looking to control blackgrass.
“Growers in this position are going to use Kerb Flo/Barclay Propyz or Astrokerb in the coming days and weeks.
“Both will give good grass weed control including blackgrass, as so far we have not seen any resistance populations to the propyzamide,” he explained.
The application rate “for Kerb Flo is 1.75-2.1 L/ha and 1.5-1.7 l/ha for Astrokerb. Growers should use the higher rates where blackgrass is an issue or where weeds are strong.
“Where crops are sprayed with AstroKerb, the rape straw must be chopped,” Phelan said.
Machinery costs
Many tillage farmers will have some spare time coming up over the next few weeks, so it might be a good time to sit down and calculate out how much our machinery costs are on the farm.
Traditionally machinery costs are considered one of the big three costs on tillage farms alongside land rent and fertiliser.
“However, we have seen a massive inflation in machinery costs over the past three or four years and I would suspect that on many farms now machinery is the biggest cost,” Phelan continued.
In 2018, Teagasc conducted a survey of tillage farms to establish actual machinery costs.
“One of the key findings at the time was that 14% of farms had higher machinery costs than the cost of employing a contractor to do the work. The suspicion is that this may well still be the case, but the risk is even greater,” Phelan explained.
Teagasc has developed a machinery cost calculator, which is free to use.
“Teagasc also launched a machinery-sharing template a number of years ago as a tool to encourage farmers to share machines or to collaborate with their own machines to reduce costs.
“This template can be used by anyone including contractors to share some machinery especially that, which may not be in use all year round.
“This template is available from any Teagasc office,” he added.