TRIALS Sowing wheat early (at the same time as the cover crop) No fert, no chems, no plow.

[Fenwick]

Hello everyone.

So I have been giving this some thought for a while, and I wanted to try something a little different.

I wanted to try sowing a bakers wheat and bean mix early (mid to end of august) along with a frost sensitive cover crop mix.

The idea being that the covercrop would die off in the autumn and the wheat and beans would be clean (ish) in the spring.

It would also feed back some biomass and a few other interesting things.

So here is the plan.
Rotavate the hayfield end of july.
Create a stale seed bed 10 days later.
Sow the mix 10 days of so after using the cover crop drill low seeding rate of wheat?
Cross fingers.
Mow (or mulch) the residue end of october, early november.
Oversow with red clover (or some kind of other mix?) mid march.
Cross fingers.

Harvest at 20 to 25%% humidity by mowing then combining the windrows once dry.

Disc in the residues and repeat or whatever..

Well that is the plan. I'm probably going to coat the seeds with some biologicals.

If it looks like a complete failure in the spring I could make some haylage and then some red clover hay later in the year.

Only trying this out on 2 hectares.

Here is a pic of the field in question. I will update with each step as I go along. And I am a month into this mess already....

 

[Fenwick]

rotivated on the 24th of july.

at a cost of 167.88€/ha.

 

[Clive]

Hello everyone.

So I have been giving this some thought for a while, and I wanted to try something a little different.

I wanted to try sowing a bakers wheat and bean mix early (mid to end of august) along with a frost sensitive cover crop mix.

The idea being that the covercrop would die off in the autumn and the wheat and beans would be clean (ish) in the spring.

It would also feed back some biomass and a few other interesting things.

So here is the plan.
Rotavate the hayfield end of july.
Create a stale seed bed 10 days later.
Sow the mix 10 days of so after using the cover crop drill low seeding rate of wheat?
Cross fingers.
Mow (or mulch) the residue end of october, early november.
Oversow with red clover (or some kind of other mix?) mid march.
Cross fingers.

Harvest at 20 to 25%% humidity by mowing then combining the windrows once dry.

Disc in the residues and repeat or whatever..

Well that is the plan. I'm probably going to coat the seeds with some biologicals.

If it looks like a complete failure in the spring I could make some haylage and then some red clover hay later in the year.

Only trying this out on 2 hectares.

Here is a pic of the field in question. I will update with each step as I go along. And I am a month into this mess already....

View attachment 1132246

good luck !

keep us updated

 

[Fenwick]

Weeds came up and I have thé field a light harrow.

good luck !

keep us updated

thanks Clive.

will do. i'm going to use this thread liké a blog, so I should update as and when and i can go black and look at what i did.

should anyone have any suggestions I am all ears.

thé unwanted seedlings germinated and thé field was harrowed on thé 07/08/2023

 

[Fenwick]

I mixed all the seeds together.

130 kgs of wheat. (4 variétés)
40kgs fava beans
4 kgs Giant sunflowers
18kgs buckwheat (with some normal sunflowers mixed in)
0.9 kgs sorgho
0.9kgs yellow millet
2 kgs hemp
0.9kgs chia

148,20€/

treated with 1ltr of fulvic and humic acid, 250ml of seaweed extract, 125ml of amino acids. and 3kgs of lithiothamne per 100kgs.

 

[richard hammond]

I mixed all the seeds together.

130 kgs of wheat. (4 variétés)
40kgs fava beans
4 kgs Giant sunflowers
18kgs buckwheat (with some normal sunflowers mixed in)
0.9 kgs sorgho
0.9kgs yellow millet
2 kgs hemp
0.9kgs chia

148,20€/

treated with 1ltr of fulvic and humic acid, 250ml of seaweed extract, 125ml of amino acids. and 3kgs of lithiothamne per 100kgs.

View attachment 1133046
View attachment 1133047

Looks interesting, hope it goes well, what status is the soil, +type, agronomically it will be challenging but there will be ways around the problems Im sure!, well done for having a GO,,

 

[Fenwick]

Looks interesting, hope it goes well, what status is the soil, +type, agronomically it will be challenging but there will be ways around the problems Im sure!, well done for having a GO,,

ph 5.9

deep silty sandy soils.
63%silt,
22% sand,

only 1.9% organic matter

could do with a bit more calcium. (62% calcium on thé base saturation). which is why the lithiothamne was added to the seed.

Traditionally trouble with compaction and capping.

the two most important weeds are camomille and docks.

 

[Fenwick]

first up are thé wheat and buckwheat seeds.

both seem to have promising rizosheaths. thé sunflowers came up a couple of days later.

 

[Fenwick]

photo taken this morning.

a very uneven density across thé field.

Some of the denser sown areas look ok.

The less dense areas are seeing a lot of ryegrass germination and Imagine other weeds will follow until canopy closure.

Thé millet, sorgho and hemp I have yet to find. thé buckwheat and sunflowers are doing well. thé chia is showing itself hère and there.

thé beans should have been planted deeper or sown more heavily.

 

[Fenwick]

Growth has been reasonable especially this last week.

I'd bé happy with thé cover reaching knee height before destruction. But I think it could do a little better.

Always amazed how quickly thé buckwheat goes to flower. Only a month after planting.

Big différence between thé standard and giant sunflowers.

standard

giant

 

[Fenwick]

Quick update

a lot of ryegrass ! thé plant on thé bottome right is chia

some of thé sunflowers are going to flower.

 

[Fenwick]

I dont think it is looking very promising. mostly because of thé huge volume if ryegrass.

thé growth has been good though.

thé buckwheat and chia are nearly up to my belt. thé giant sunflowers are nearly 5 feet tall, with some reaching 6 feet. not bad in 7 weeks!

still going to plod on. interested in seeing what happens once it has been chopped down. probably in a month or so.

could bé a new way if implanting a New let. sowing New grass with a cereal crop is already common enough hère. so it's only a small step.