The benefits that organic manures can provide to tillage fields were on display on the Teagasc stand at the National Ploughing Championships 2026 on Tuesday.
The demonstration showed that organic manures can produce the same yields of tillage crops as chemical fertilisers.
It also displayed four different treatments in pots: a control where no fertiliser or organic manure were applied; a conventional approach of nitrogen fertiliser in the form of calcium ammonium nitrate (CAN); and also two organic manure treatments, farmyard manure and compost.
Each of these treatments was applied at a standard rate of 70 kg/ha of available nitrogen.
Hot topic
The use of organic manures on tillage farms is currently a hot topic, and this demonstration provided a visual representation of the potential they have on-farm.
The fertiliser pot and two organic manure pots produced similar levels of biomass and grain, although the chemical fertiliser pot was slightly taller. This was due to the quick availability of the nitrogen to the plants.
All three treatments were significantly ahead of the control pot.
However, the interesting results came to the fore below the ground. The two organic manure pots showed improved water retention and soil structure, while the control and chemical fertiliser plots dried out quickly and contained little soil structure.
The control pot had visibly less rooting too.
The compost pot shows the most-stark difference, with a visible change in soil colour in the rooting zone because of the applied compost.
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