“There is a large variation in production costs on tillage farms.” That was the message from Teagasc’s Jack Jameson at the Teagasc Crops Forum. Jack presented real, on-farm data comprising 21 growers for three years, totalling 63 fields of first winter wheat. These farms were a mixture of plough, min-till and direct drill-based systems.

When looking at these different systems, Jack explained that “contrasting production cost strategies emerge”.

There was a conventional grouping of plough-based farms with a high input, high output system. The second group was a reduced costs group made up of direct drill farmers, who were cutting as many costs as they could, especially in terms of fungicide spend, fertiliser costs and their crop establishment costs.

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Over the three years, the conventional group yielded 12.29t/ha (4.97t/ac) on average compared to 10.72t/ha (4.34t/ac) for the reduced costs group.

However, for total costs excluding land rental that had been updated to 2026 values, the conventional group had costs of €2,326.30/ha (€941.44/ac) compared to €1,900.80/ha (€769.24/ac) for the reduced costs group.

This reduction in costs of €425.50/ha (€172.20/ac) is quite large, but this does not mean that it will lead to a higher net margin. Jack explained that tillage income volatility can typically be traced to three main factors that farmers cannot control: grain price, fertiliser price and the weather. Therefore, Jack examined how these two different production systems would perform in different scenarios for these three factors.

In a worst-case scenario of low yield and grain prices with high fertiliser costs, the reduced costs group had a higher margin to the tune of €388/ha (€157.02/ac). However, when a best-case scenario of high grain prices, high yields and low fertiliser prices was considered, the conventional group had the higher margin by €175/ha €175/ha (70.82/ac).

No matter what production system is used on-farm, Jack reminded farmers that “there is probably scope for everyone to improve their costs in some way”.