Precision tine harrows, camera-guided inter-row weeders, biofilm punch sowers and precision drills, solar-powered automatic seeding and weeding robots and AI light weeding robots could be used as innovative solutions to improve weed control and reduce labour on organic tillage and vegetable farms.
A range of different specialised machinery and technology was on display at the official launch and open day of the Teagasc organic tillage and vegetables project at participant Tommy Delahunt’s farm in Ballinaclogh, Co Wicklow, on Thursday.
The project is a four-year European Innovation Partnership (EIP) project funded by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine and the European Union.
The aim of the project is to look at new innovative solutions for improving weed management on organic tillage and vegetable farms, while also improving access to specialised equipment through machinery sharing between farmers.
A solar powered automatic seeding and weeding robot.\ Hannah Furlong
The project is built around an operational group of four organic vegetable and tillage farmers and three organic cereal farmers who are testing and sharing the specialised machinery.
It also looks at growing a more diverse range of organic crops in Ireland.
“The main organic crop in Ireland at the moment is oats and we can’t just keep growing oats either, we need other crops for a sustainable rotation,” project leader and organic tillage specialist with Teagasc Martin Bourke told the Irish Farmers Journal.
“This project is allowing us to have a look to see could we grow organic crops like beet, maize, lupins, protein crops and vegetable crops.
“We currently import over 70% of all our organic fruit and vegetables, so we could displace some of those imports,” he said.
Farmer-led
Brainstorming sessions were carried out with the farmers where they identified crops that they don’t currently grow but would like to, including maize and beet. Vegetable farmers also saw this as a good break crop in their rotation.
Next, the machinery that the farmers would need was identified and this machinery is now being road tested and shared between the farmers.
“This is very high-tech stuff which comes at a very expensive cost and not all farmers can afford this on their own, especially tillage farmers,” Bourke said.
Machinery sharing
Tom Delahunt, son of Tommy, was nominated as the designated driver for year one of the project, therefore he goes around to each of the participants’ farms to operate the machinery.
Maize sown under biofilm. \ Hannah Furlong
“It’s very important to have a very skilled driver, especially in year one, and then let that person train everyone else over time, so you’re not adjusting settings on tractors. He got one-to-one training and it’s been working very well,” Bourke explained.
An ambition of the project is to develop a machinery-sharing model that would best fit Ireland.
Bourke said they will examine machinery-sharing models that are being used in other parts of the world to help with this, for example the Cuma model in France where farmers are arranged in co-operatives sharing machinery.
For more, see next week’s Irish Farmers Journal and listen to the Tillage Podcast.
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