Waterford Farming: Order your seed early!
Certain varieties of seed will be in high demand this year.
Cork-based seed assemblers Goldcrop are advising farmers to plan ahead, calculate their autumn seed requirements well in advance of sowing, and order what they need from their local merchant / co-op well in advance of the intended sowing date.
“We anticipate there should be a good demand for winter cereal seed this autumn, but because the spring crop harvest and intake will be delayed this year, that will put pressure on our processing plants to get seed turned around quickly,” said Donal Fitzgerald, General Manager of Arable Seeds at Goldcrop.
“Certain varieties will be in high demand so the sooner folks get their spoke in, the more likely they are to secure supply. In particular, we expect the new BYDV tolerant 6-row winter barley variety 'Integral' to sell out early. It is performing very well on farms this year again and it should be a new addition on the DAFM Recommended List for 2024/25.
"Our other mainstay 2-row variety 'Tardis' will also be a very popular choice with growers, in fact we expect it will remain the largest selling winter barley in Ireland for harvest 2025.”
'Enya' is a new variety of oats being launched in the market this year, and seed agents Goldcrop are confident that the variety is very well suited to Irish growing conditions.
“For years we have been trying to identify a new oat variety to replace Barra, which was by far the best quality oat in the market here for almost 35 years,” said Joe Millerick of Goldcrop.
“'Isabel' was the first variety we introduced in 2019 that could match or surpass Barra on quality. Now we have another new line called 'Enya', which looks even better again, particularly if sown in the autumn time.
"It is a white oat with very high yield potential, good straw, good disease resistance and, most importantly, high specific weight with very good kernel content.
"It also produces kernels that are almost 20% bigger than the market-leading variety Husky, and this should help millers to produce larger flakes with lower de-hulling losses too,” said Joe.
All going well, Enya should make up approximately 16% of the seed available this autumn, and Goldcrop are hopeful the variety will be added to the new DAFM Recommended List for 2024/25.
