At the Dairygold Annual Tillage Conference, Ciarán Collins, tillage specialist with Teagasc, gave an example of diesel use and costs on a sample tillage farm.

Collins outlined a farm with 300ac, split evenly between winter and spring cereals. The spring area is generally planted with cover crops. He did up costs to investigate what it would mean if the farm went from a plough-based system to a reduced tillage system.

The farmer ploughs and one-passes in the winter and ploughs, cultivates with a roller with paddles and one-passes in the spring time.

The example outlined a farm with two tractors and a one-pass on finance. The tractors are 250hp and a four-furrow plough is used on the farm. There is a roller with paddles, a 3m one-pass and a 3m disc harrow on the farm.

Collins suggested that a tine stubble cultivator would be purchased on the TAMS with a 40% grant. Under TAMS the reference cost is just over €17,500, but the machine is likely to be more expensive than this. Some people may be able to avail of a 60% grant.

He chose this cultivator as someone moving over to this system may still be cultivating deep while converting.

Diesel

In Table 1, Collins has outlined the number of litres of diesel which are burned per acre using different pieces of machinery. He explained that the intensity of cultivation was going to play a big role in these figures. Someone cultivating lighter will not use as much diesel for example.

He then outlined the number of acres which were ploughed, cultivated, rolled, etc. At the bottom of the table, it shows how much diesel was burned in total per acre, the amount of diesel used and the cost of diesel use per acre. Collins showed almost the same level of diesel use and similar diesel costs in the different establishment systems.

In Table 1, the 50mm cultivation is the post-harvest cultivation on the spring cropping area.

Table 2 shows the total estimated costs of different establishment systems. It includes machinery repairs and maintenance, machinery interest costs and the total machinery costs/ac.

The repair and maintenance figure is much higher on the plough-based system as more parts are purchased.

The plough-based system works out €5/ac more expensive at €80/ac to run than the non-inversion system at €75/ac. Collins used the Teagasc machinery costs calculator to do this.

Other costs and benefits

He highlighted some other costs associated with a non-inversion tillage system. For example, glyphosate use will likely be higher and grass weed control can become more difficult. He also noted that the system can be challenging in a wet autumn/spring.

However, the non-inversion system offers higher work rates, lower labour costs and can have soil structure and fertility benefits.