Low quality feed imports need to be tackled

Wdraining soils. Heavy showers have frequently interrupted sowing. The earliest winter barley is now at growth stage 12. Crows appear to be doing more damage than normal. Given the mild weather aphid activity is high too. ITCA sticky traps, used to estimate the level of aphid migration, indicate more than twice the aphid counts for this time last year. If those aphids are carrying Barley Yellow Dwarf Virus, crops are likely to be infected.

Most growers have opted to treat seed with Redigo Deter, which should give adequate control of aphids and prevent transmission of BYDV for six to eight weeks. Use of the seed dressing will, in most cases enable farmers to use only one pyrethroid (early November). That will reduce the risk of promoting resistance by aphids to pyrethroids and will avoid damage to natural predators.

Use of only one pyrethreoid will form the backbone of your anti-resistance strategy as we no longer have insecticides with an alternative mode of action. (This is not a problem for feedstuffs imported from outside Europe.)

Farmers in areas of the country which traditionally have high pressure from BYDV may be tempted to use two aphicides. That will do considerable damage to the natural predators and allow resistant aphids to thrive. The need for insecticide usage is reduced where an interval of at least five weeks is left between good ploughing, with all green material turned down, or with the use of a herbicide to burn off all green material.

The best option for growing cereals in areas of high BYDV risk is to delay sowing until early November. The Nitrate Regulations have very strict requirements on ploughing, herbicide usage and stockpiling of farmyard manures many of which are easily forgotten.

1.

Grassland must not be ploughed between October 16 and November 30.

2.

Where grassland is ploughed between July 1 and October 15, you must sow a crop to provide green cover by November 1.

3.

Where tillage land is ploughed between July 1 and November 30, you must provide green cover from a sown crop within six weeks of ploughing. Therefore autumn ploughing is for sowing winter crops only and you can commence ploughing for spring crops on December 1.

4.

A rough surface must be maintained prior to sowing a crop where lands are ploughed between December 1 and January 15.

5.

Where a non selective herbicide is applied to land between July 1 and November 30, you must attempt to have green cover established on all of the land (100pc) within six weeks from either a sown crop or natural regeneration. For many situations establishment by natural regeneration will consist of shallow cultivation. The minimum area is reduced to 75pc on land contracted for seed crops or for human consumption.

6.

No cultivation is allowed with 2m of any watercourse identified on the Ordnance Survey Ireland 6” map.

7.

Farmyard manure cannot be stockpiled on land after November 1 by which it should be either landspread, stored in a dungsted with effluent collection facilities or stored in a shed which has a concrete floor from which effluent cannot escape.

Finally, if we are serious about quality food and the need for standards it is time for the consumer associations to join forces with the farming organisations and look to ensure that the concentrates that are fed to our animals are fully traceable and grown to the same standards that are supplied and demanded of EU farmers.

PJ Phelan is a tillage advisor based in Tipperary and is a member of the ACA and ITCA