Ergot

[franklin]

Even in fields with no BG, and with all the trace elements etc, the damned samples still have a *tiny* bit of ergot in them. Any thoughts on what to do with the bloody stuff? I am not keen on sending 76/400/14% dry Skyfall in to the chicken feed mill etc.

Is there an economical way to clean it out of a 1000t heap? Mobile gravity separator?

 

[farming4profit]

Speak to Frontier they have new colour sorters that take ergot out - GFP Agriculture at Brigg will sort you out I would have thought.

 

[Woldgrain Storage]

A gravity separator will take some/most of the ergot out, but not all of it.

A colour sorter is the only way to remove ergot completely, but is expensive and will require additional haulage unless someone has a mobile one with spare capacity.

The biggest colour sorters are doing 30mt per hour at best.

 

[franklin]

Ta. Looking at the samples I reckon its not as bad as I thought when we heard the Ergot Alert. Heaps were segregated as they came into the shed, and it looks like it is all in one bit.

Looking to the future, the fields it has come from were not grassy but later drilled. Grrr.

 

[Warnesworth]

Focus on copper to reduce ergot in future crops.

 

[DrWazzock]

Worse ergot occurred for us round patches of wheat we had spayed off because of black grass. Wheat on the periphery of the sprayed off patches that was only half killed by the glyphosate had succumbed to ergot big style.

Stick it on a boat.

 

[DrWazzock]

Colour sorter is the only way to get enough out, if you can find one that doesn't have a big queue.

Damn the stuff.

 

[franklin]

Focus on copper to reduce ergot in future crops.

Copper applied as chelated copper at T1 & 2. No deficiency in tissue tests. Ah well.

Colour sorter is the only way to get enough out, if you can find one that doesn't have a big queue.

Damn the stuff.

It's a bugger. If mills had a sorter on intake, they could just deduct us £7 a ton or whatever on site. Would be easy money for them.

 

[Flat 10]

Worse ergot occurred for us round patches of wheat we had spayed off because of black grass. Wheat on the periphery of the sprayed off patches that was only half killed by the glyphosate had succumbed to ergot big style.

Stick it on a boat.

Presumably another time you could not combine these patches? Presumably you are only talking a couple of feet?

 

[Fenboy3]

Speak to Frontier they have new colour sorters that take ergot out - GFP Agriculture at Brigg will sort you out I would have thought.

Quoted £15 per tonne plus 3% weight loss so with current gp1 premiums not worth it

 

[bovrill]

I was told Agrii have a mobile colour sorter, but I've managed to find no ergot at all in my Mulika, which I was expecting to be full of it.
The only conclusion we could come to was that because the wheat was in standing water from ear emergence to end of flowering, there was no chance of the ergot on the ground to spore. It nearly killed the wheat, and halved the yield, as well as destroying the bushel weight, but no ergot!

 

[DrWazzock]

I was told Agrii have a mobile colour sorter, but I've managed to find no ergot at all in my Mulika, which I was expecting to be full of it.
The only conclusion we could come to was that because the wheat was in standing water from ear emergence to end of flowering, there was no chance of the ergot on the ground to spore. It nearly killed the wheat, and halved the yield, as well as destroying the bushel weight, but no ergot!

There's always a silver lining.

 

[Derky]

Colour sorting costs in region of £10 a tonne. To set up the colour sorter, associated conveyors, hoppers and staff...............................We want a colour sorter here and have work for it but the figures are eye watering for the fastest 30 tonne an hour one.

 

[Brisel]

What about a gravity separator? There must still be a few of those knocking around? @Woldgrain Storage just how effective are they - in the past I have had Warburtons milling wheat lorries cleaned up for Nelstrop without any further issues.

 

[Woldgrain Storage]

Quoted £15 per tonne plus 3% weight loss so with current gp1 premiums not worth it

Does that include some haulage??

 

[crazy_bull]

What about a gravity separator? There must still be a few of those knocking around? @Woldgrain Storage just how effective are they - in the past I have had Warburtons milling wheat lorries cleaned up for Nelstrop without any further issues.

Gets a lot, but not all of it out, big problems with black grass ergot as well as grain ergot this year.

C B

 

[Woldgrain Storage]

What about a gravity separator? There must still be a few of those knocking around? @Woldgrain Storage just how effective are they - in the past I have had Warburtons milling wheat lorries cleaned up for Nelstrop without any further issues.

All depends on the ergot. The biggest difficulty with ergot is the extent to which it varies in size and shape.

A gravity separator would maybe take out 95% (or more) of fine grass ergot from a heavy Gp1 milling wheat. However, any ergot bodies that weighed the same as a 62kg/hl malting barley grain (for example) would not be removed.

Here are grass weed ergot bodies in a Gp 3 wheat of 79.7 kg/hl

Here are cereal ergot bodies in the same wheat:

 

[Grain Buyer]

What about a gravity separator? There must still be a few of those knocking around? @Woldgrain Storage just how effective are they - in the past I have had Warburtons milling wheat lorries cleaned up for Nelstrop without any further issues.

agree about a gravity separator. In all my years of sorting out ergot I have never had a problem after a load has been over a table. In a couple of cases the wheat was put over the table twice to get the pesky ones out, but that was just a case of recycling the output line back into the feed in line so no double handling. The other benefit of a gravity separator is the fact it will increase hagberg from unmarketable milling wheat to full spec stuff. If you can't justify a massive spend, I've seen some real Heath Robinson affairs which have done the job well, just needed a bit more time and tinkering. Id also recommend a pre-cleaner in the line prior to the table to take out the majority of the rubbish before the GS does it's thing.

 

[Warnesworth]

Copper applied as chelated copper at T1 & 2. No deficiency in tissue tests. Ah well.

Without wishing to sound facetious, all you have proved is that you have managed to apply some copper to the outside of the leaf!

 

[franklin]

That would depend on when I took the tissue samples.