Getting away without Growth Regulator?

[DrWazzock]

In my quest for lower input farming and an easier life, I am considering cutting out growth regulator on my winter barley. We are on light land anyway, which is prone to drought and I am growing SY Venture which has reasonably short stiff straw. I don't go overboard with N rates due to lack of moisture in early summer.

I am anticipating putting on 140 kg N at most, as we are following OSR which following a 4 year grass ley. The barley will most likely be fed back to our cattle and we use the straw.

Will I get away with it, and will the yield penalty be excessive?

Just trying to get away from high inputs and also dislike these chemicals. The nightmare would be a wet spring and early summer but I suppose I could still go down the Terpal route if things looked to be getting out of hand.

I had hoped to go just once with a fungicide but it looks like it will need two doses due to rhynchosporium.

I am hoping a good rolling will also suppress straw length.

 

[tr250]

In my quest for lower input farming and an easier life, I am considering cutting out growth regulator on my winter barley. We are on light land anyway, which is prone to drought and I am growing SY Venture which has reasonably short stiff straw. I don't go overboard with N rates due to lack of moisture in early summer.

I am anticipating putting on 140 kg N at most, as we are following OSR which following a 4 year grass ley. The barley will most likely be fed back to our cattle and we use the straw.

Will I get away with it, and will the yield penalty be excessive?

Just trying to get away from high inputs and also dislike these chemicals. The nightmare would be a wet spring and early summer but I suppose I could still go down the Terpal route if things looked to be getting out of hand.

I had hoped to go just once with a fungicide but it looks like it will need two doses due to rhynchosporium.

I am hoping a good rolling will also suppress straw length.

Have you got any sheep Ive grazed some to try and do similar

 

[binbusy]

Light land we tend to cut it right back anyway as you say most years it will self regulate.
if varietys are improving (like they say) with stiffer/shorter straw we should be using less anyway!

 

[DrWazzock]

Have you got any sheep Ive grazed some to try and do similar

We have sheep and I considered grazing it but bottled out. We grazed the wheat last year and it was very successful but I worried that the barley might not recover so well.

Due to the N release from the ploughed up ley, it has lots of tillers at the moment. I am delaying the N till mid March, however yellow it looks. The last thing I need is to provoke more tillers by putting N on now.

 

[Brisel]

What's your target grain N and current tillers/m2?

Using chlormequat now means you have to come back with Terpal later thanks to "bounce back" where later internode spacings are longer to make up for the early ones you have shortened with 3C.

0.1 Moddus could be put in with the T1 if you feel it is still too thick. I would advise against delaying a tickle of N until stem extension as you might lose too may tillers but it's hard to say without a decent picture & tiller counts.

Whatever happens, as you say you always have the option of Terpal later on but it must be applied before the ear emerges.

 

[DrWazzock]

On a different note, my OSR has too many plants per square metre and they are as purple as hell at the minute due to lack of N. There is a tiny bit of green growth in the tip of each plant though. I hope to hold off N until the plant starts to bolt, again in the hope of avoiding too much side shoot vegetative growth and avoiding the need for a growth regulator fungicide.

 

[Brisel]

What's the GAI of the osr? Lush crops can wait a little while for N but only another week or two.

 

[DrWazzock]

I'll have another proper look at the tillers and GAI and then maybe reassess.

But roughly speaking you can't see the soil in the winter barley. It's like a grass field due to tillering, not high seed rate, but looks a bit yellow from a distance. It is a malting variety but is grown for feed as we normally get good yields with it.

The OSR I would say is 75 to 100% ground covered but due to too many small plants rather than large leaf area of fewer larger plants. If I delay N until these plants bolt, will I lose yield? Will some die out altogether? I don't want to end up with the massive dense canopy we seem to end up with every year. We get good yields but could do better I think.

 

[Flat 10]

I dislike terpal so if I was going through with fung I would do as Brisel says and use 0.1 Moddus. Should help with rooting too and that would be my worry with holding back N as you surely want to encourage rooting?

 

[Brisel]

The osr sounds like a GAI of over 1 but not by much. It will bolt very soon so beware.

Barley does go yellow at this time of year. The top wants to grow but the roots are cold & wet still. If it were mine I'd give it a sniff of N but nothing more. Stem extension will start in a couple of weeks time & you'll definitely need something on then regardless.

 

[Brisel]

I dislike terpal so if I was going through with fung I would do as Brisel says and use 0.1 Moddus. Should help with rooting too and that would be my worry with holding back N as you surely want to encourage rooting?

Terpal timing is really too early to fit the ideal T2 slot but can be done if necessary. There's a lot of net blotch around here so I'm planning on a 3 spray fungicide programme in order to target 8-10 t/ha from Tower & Volume feed varieties.

 

[DrWazzock]

We once had a disaster with too late applied Terpal. Blind ears.

Thanks for the advice. Helpful. Looks like I might need to get the flotations out as well.

A bit of N on next week. The rest by end of March. A splash of Moddus (maybe) at T1 fungicide, then just a fungicide at T2. Terpal if we really have to before ear emergence. Jobs a good un.

 

[robbie]

We're on light drought prone land and we don't bother with pgr's on barley despite them all getting pig muck.
we want all the straw we can get and normally there's a dry spell at some point which regulates it for us.
I'd say give it a good rolling to break apical dominance and that will be fine.
With regards to holding Of on N, I wouldn't .I've never had good results from starving barley. Feed it early and push it on as far as I'm concerned barley can't be to thick.

 

[tr250]

We're on light drought prone land and we don't bother with pgr's on barley despite them all getting pig muck.
we want all the straw we can get and normally there's a dry spell at some point which regulates it for us.
I'd say give it a good rolling to break apical dominance and that will be fine.
With regards to holding Of on N, I wouldn't .I've never had good results from starving barley. Feed it early and push it on as far as I'm concerned barley can't be to thick.

Until the day you combine it and your pulling your hair out when you can't keep it in the combine well that's me anyway

 

[Brisel]

You can always chuck that extra tonne/ha of grain out of the back of the combine instead...

 

[tr250]

You can always chuck that extra tonne/ha of grain out of the back of the combine instead...

With yields of barley getting towards 4t acre it's a massive bulk going through much probably half as much again as same yielding wheat

 

[beefandsleep]

how much N are you using for 4t and what variety @tr250

 

[Brisel]

With yields of barley getting towards 4t acre it's a massive bulk going through much probably half as much again as same yielding wheat

It's a bit more than an equivalent wheat crop but not much more total biomass. What really also slows it down is the more agressive threshng needed to get the grain out of the ear vs a ripe wheat crop. What else will you be doing at that time of year? I'd rather have the extra grain & straw (if cost effective).

 

[willy]

It's not exactly a high cost, and if you are only putting a 140 kg on its unlikly to go mega flat. Just keep it cheap and cheerful. But seriously if you are quibbling over growth reg I wouldn't want to be your agronomist

 

[DrWazzock]

It's not exactly a high cost, and if you are only putting a 140 kg on its unlikly to go mega flat. Just keep it cheap and cheerful. But seriously if you are quibbling over growth reg I wouldn't want to be your agronomist

it doesn't cost a lot in itself, but all the small amounts add up plus a few more hours on the sprayer.

Also, if things get droughty I think they do more harm than good.