Yield Limiting

WestCorkBoy

WestCorkBoy

Well-Known Member
I have often looked at a crop and thought Id love to know how to get the maximum (economic) yield out of it. Especially where establishment is good and a crop gets a good start. My question is around plant nutrition from npk to trace elements, to magic potion products how are ye deciding what to do is it field history, visual observation, soil tests, leaf analysis. Do you have a stratergy or is it ad hoc.

Lets assume we are all spreading lime and soil testing for our basic P & K requirements.
 
WestCorkBoy said:
I have often looked at a crop and thought Id love to know how to get the maximum (economic) yield out of it. Especially where establishment is good and a crop gets a good start. My question is around plant nutrition from npk to trace elements, to magic potion products how are ye deciding what to do is it field history, visual observation, soil tests, leaf analysis. Do you have a stratergy or is it ad hoc.

Lets assume we are all spreading lime and soil testing for our basic P & K requirements.
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I think the spring barley thread has moved in the direction of your post above.

As you elude to, the big things (drainage, pH, P, K, seed bed, variety choice, disease control etc etc) will get you most of the way in terms of achieving a very good yield.

If any of the above are wrong then you are on a loser from the start regardless of what happens afterwards.

In general, the Trace Elements would be the fine tuning of the crop - might be the difference between 3tn and 3.15tn but it all adds up.

I have commented on our nutritional factors on the barley thread but our approach is as follows;

Soil test is number one in terms of knowing what you have/have not, we use Teagasc.
It depends on the soil really, we apply Copper Sulphate (and planning Zinc Sulphate) where soil is shown to be low. Much better than trying to get these elements onto a growing crop which is already after suffering.
P lock up due to high pH is dealt with by applying a small amount of P to the seedbed (20-25 units).

Manganese is dealt with by Manganese Sulphate here.

We have started doing some leaf testing this year. It can only ever be a back up to the soil test as the leaf test is just a picture from a moment in time. However, it is interesting and might help us spot something that is lacking in a crop.

I like to apply Combitop with the last fungicide to cereal crops. Just 5-10kg/ha. Seems to give very level crops - not sure which element is doing this.

I am trying out a few products from https://bionatureagriculture.com/ on plots this year to see what happens. I might repeat again next year.

The market is absolutely full of nutritional and "biostimulant" products, many of which are more likely to have a high margin for the seller than actually do anything for the crop.


Your thread title is interesting though, maybe the discussion can be broadened out to discuss the factors that we can see making a difference in yield potential of crops.....

Patches missing from a crop, the number of rows of crop removed by tramlines, plant numbers/m2, harvest timeliness etc etc all make a difference.

We can't control the weather but what can we control......?
 
Hardysplicer said:
You’d can’t recover yield potential that’s lost even if it does rain
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Some early crops have lost a good bit of potential that will not recover, leaves and heads are too small, but if it got rain once a week it would be OK.
The worst of mine would still recover if ideal conditions came for the rest of the summer, but every day from here we are loosing.
 
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gone said:
Some early crops have lost a good bit of potential that will not recover, leaves and heads are too small, but if it got rain once a week it would be OK.
The worst of mine would still recover if ideal conditions came for the rest of the summer, but every day from here we are loosing.
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It’s unfortunate when it’s rain it’s lacking
Either too much or too little
 
How stable is boron in the soil, I apply granular boron every 3 years for beet, (8kg/ha) soil levels are low is it something worth considering applying in following crops? Ive heard boron blamed for blank grain sites at times.
 
WestCorkBoy said:
How stable is boron in the soil, I apply granular boron every 3 years for beet, (8kg/ha) soil levels are low is it something worth considering applying in following crops? Ive heard boron blamed for blank grain sites at times.
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Similar to Sulphur
Held by Organic matter
Can only be built over time but beet in rotation would do a fair job at maintaining levels
 
Has anything conclusive come from the YEN project on yield?

It seemed to me high seed rates, sow early and lots of N? :undecided:
 
nashmach said:
Has anything conclusive come from the YEN project on yield?

It seemed to me high seed rates, sow early and lots of N? :undecided:
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I haven’t really been following it to be honest.

Early sowing (of winter cereals) down here would only lead to hardship anyway.
 
CORK said:
I haven’t really been following it to be honest.

Early sowing (of winter cereals) down here would only lead to hardship anyway.
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It's a bit willy waving if you ask me, great to get huge yields but at what price? The law of diminishing marginal returns comes into play at some stage.....
 
nashmach said:
It's a bit willy waving if you ask me, great to get huge yields but at what price? The law of diminishing marginal returns comes into play at some stage.....
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I don’t see it that way to be honest.

We all need to do what we can to maximize margin and usually a bigger heap does that.

In the case of YEN, it’s all about achieving as much (%) of the theoretical yield from a particular field as possible. The winner may not actually be the highest outright yield - there are many things that can be learnt from such a process.

As @Blackwater boy also stated, the most common yield limiting factor that I come across is poor establishment.
 
Personally I think some of you are over complicating it
None of us can control the weather which has been already said is the biggest factor
 
headcase said:
Personally I think some of you are over complicating it
None of us can control the weather which has been already said is the biggest factor
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You hardly suggest that we ignore the factors that we can control? (Everything mentioned above except the weather).

In every parish, there are farmers who genuinely produce more per acre (tonnes, milk, meat). This usually means more profit too. They are often on the same type of land as their neighbours but yet do lots of little things better.
 
CORK said:
You hardly suggest that we ignore the factors that we can control? (Everything mentioned above except the weather).

In every parish, there are farmers who genuinely produce more per acre (tonnes, milk, meat). This usually means more profit too. They are often on the same type of land as their neighbours but yet do lots of little things better.
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Aggregation of marginal gains
 
CORK said:
I don’t see it that way to be honest.

We all need to do what we can to maximize margin and usually a bigger heap does that.

In the case of YEN, it’s all about achieving as much (%) of the theoretical yield from a particular field as possible. The winner may not actually be the highest outright yield - there are many things that can be learnt from such a process.

As @Blackwater boy also stated, the most common yield limiting factor that I come across is poor establishment.
Click to expand...

Apologies, I had oversimplified the motivation behind YEN.

I agree with BB, I've had enough of that myself :sad:
 
Every single thing we do from the day we plan to sow somthing right through to harvest has an effect on yield, we all know the factors but some see more factors than others. The attention to detail, doing things on time every time, putting out the correct fertilisers and the right amounts needed. The establishment, soil fertility, rotation, working the land when it’s fit/ready and not when the calendar or the neighbour says so. Many many factors and all these add up to the main yield. But if your fertility and rotation ain’t right and you don’t establish every single acre right then your off to a bad start.
 
Spraying on Copper Sulphate this afternoon, this land was index 1 - 2 for Copper up to a few years ago when I applied 20kg/Ha on ploughing. This immediately raised indices to 4.
Latest soil test showed that levels were starting to slip back to Index 3ish so I gave it a top up of 11.5kg today on the stubble, it should wash in.

Also tried some Zinc Sulphate at 11 kg/Ha in a separate pass to see if I could increase soil levels. Threw in a drop of Glyphosate with it.

Land is destined for strip tilled WOSR early next week.

BF23D413-83B4-4E8B-BDC1-BF16053E8F89.jpeg BCB9C4A3-F1EB-4E81-BE34-11D14F8F2589.jpeg
 
Why not apply lower levels to the crop as a foliar each year instead of single big hits? Had you leaf analysis pointing to uptake issues
 
Ozzy Scott said:
Why not apply lower levels to the crop as a foliar each year instead of single big hits? Had you leaf analysis pointing to uptake issues
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I used to do that but invariably Copper was left out of tank mixes as they would be too complex or it was simply forgotten.
Having the nutrient present in the soil from day one of the plants growth is always going to be more beneficial than chasing ones tail with foliar applications.

Soil tests showed low Cu & Zn levels and visible Cu deficiency was visible on one occasion in winter barley before I applied to the soil.
I use leaf analysis but it’s only a snap shot in time and it’s generally accepted that leaf analysis for nutrients only provides back up to soil tests.
 
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