Wheat drilling

Brisel

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Midlands
Too damn wet. Too windy for spraying the seedbeds off. Blackgrass has made most wary of starting this early but I'm sure someone has made a start somewhere.

I'm ready to start any time once I can spray off the first 200 ac block ready for Graham wheat but the drilling tractor is in hundreds of bits & needs a new transmission casting which means it won't be back for 2 weeks! Nothing else in the yard will even lift the drill, never mind pull it up steep hills.:banghead::inpain::mad:
 

Iben

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Fife
Neighbour has been sowing wheat. Will be ten days before I start that, winter barley and winter oats first once it ever stops raining.

Bad news about your tractor brisel! Any chance of a demo tractor to keep you going? Never much available at this time of year.
 

Brisel

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Midlands
Fortunately the tractor is contract hired. The owner has bought several from John Deere this year alone so I think JD UK are finding a substitute for me ;)
 

J 1177

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Durham, UK
I know a lad thats got 100ac mauled in. Cant see the point. Iv got my land ploughed for barley. If it dries up enough il put some of my wheat in min till if not plough and combi.
Osr is lookin well. One field (thats going into wheat) has a slight bg problem so its not getting sown till mid oct.
 
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franklin

New Member
We may start before the beans are in. Suspect failed OSR land will be the first. If we run out of land work we will pop the winter barley in after the weekend, and then set off into some wheat. Yes, blackgrass, yadda yadda so the worst fields will be last but by the time we wait until late October the yield loss from poor establishment exceeds the BG losses. Most land wont see wheat again for 6 years so we will get some done.
 

MrNoo

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Cirencester
Not quite there yet, ex-OSR land has been min tilled but needs spraying off and a few other fields I am ploughing, if it dries up enough I shall bang some in towards the end of the month, if not it will go into Spring cropping, seed cleaners coming end of next week.
Went to a ploughing match in Herefordshire and there was still plenty of wheat/beans still to be cut at the weekend but then the ground was rock hard, seems they have had very little rain in places.
 
About the 23 to 25th I will tentatively make a start , seed beds are in excellent condition so far , certainly nothing will need forcing in hopefully , tho linseed and maize to be taken off the fields , things can soon change
 
Won't be starting till the end of October. Drilling anytime soon just lines the pockets of the input supplying industry.

So be it but one thing I have learnt over 35 odd years of this job is that a crap crop can cost just as much to grow as a good crop ,,,, if I delayed drilling by a month I would still be trying to get a pre emergence on and possibly have more problems with slugs ,,,,, I get the bit that you might be forced into a T0 because of a forward crop but I'd say that's a good 5 squid spent if it means I've got wall to wall good crops of wheat ....... I thought a few months ago you were asking about pre ems because of certain weed issues . Yes they are not cheap but good money spent in my book and last year almost took all the BG out by the time we got to Nov
 
So be it but one thing I have learnt over 35 odd years of this job is that a crap crop can cost just as much to grow as a good crop ,,,, if I delayed drilling by a month I would still be trying to get a pre emergence on and possibly have more problems with slugs ,,,,, I get the bit that you might be forced into a T0 because of a forward crop but I'd say that's a good 5 squid spent if it means I've got wall to wall good crops of wheat ....... I thought a few months ago you were asking about pre ems because of certain weed issues . Yes they are not cheap but good money spent in my book and last year almost took all the BG out by the time we got to Nov

Drilling late is one of the best weapons for grass weeds. And travelling on no tilled land isn't an issue. I've been out today where we've planted covers topping the hedge bottoms hardly making a mark in tramlines getting from field to field.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

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Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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