Blackgrass and no-till

Fred

Member
BASE UK Member
Location
Mid Northants
Wandering round the farm this last week , I'm starting to see blackgrass poke its head above the wheat, whilst I understand the lifecycle of this crop, I am looking for patterns

I am seeing odd stripes , and obviously patches , but its the stripes that are making me think, they are either poorly dosed pre-em, avadex striping or cultivation issues.

If its cultivation strips it would seem to be in place where the tines ran deep.
So my conclusion is less deep disturbance , leave the bg on the surface allowing pre ems to work better ,

my questions are, on heavyish land

1 do pre-ems work better where there is (a) little disturbance joker etc (b) no disturbance
2 Does cultivating to any depth encourage deep rooting bg that is not killed by pre-em
3 How do we cultivate to depth , remove wheelings etc without disturbing the seed bank
4 if we decide to no-till does this help , or hinder bg control
 

Hampton

Member
BASIS
Location
Shropshire
It’s a double edged sword. Pre-ems work better where there is less trash, no-till by its nature has much surface trash.
I still don’t believe that no-till is the answer to blackgrass, in the same way ploughing isn’t the answer. Rotation is the answer and you choose your drilling/cultivation technique. Not the other way around
 

goodevans

Member
Wandering round the farm this last week , I'm starting to see blackgrass poke its head above the wheat, whilst I understand the lifecycle of this crop, I am looking for patterns

I am seeing odd stripes , and obviously patches , but its the stripes that are making me think, they are either poorly dosed pre-em, avadex striping or cultivation issues.

If its cultivation strips it would seem to be in place where the tines ran deep.
So my conclusion is less deep disturbance , leave the bg on the surface allowing pre ems to work better ,

my questions are, on heavyish land

1 do pre-ems work better where there is (a) little disturbance joker etc (b) no disturbance
2 Does cultivating to any depth encourage deep rooting bg that is not killed by pre-em
3 How do we cultivate to depth , remove wheelings etc without disturbing the seed bank
4 if we decide to no-till does this help , or hinder bg control
Or combine swaths
 

Hampton

Member
BASIS
Location
Shropshire
My experience with direct drilling OSR is the Kerb works a lot better where there is less disturbance , and that's into chopped wheat straw
That is because the black grass is less likely to grow from depth.
Ahdb trials have shown that ploughing can give 70-80% control of black grass however, so it is crazy to rule it out
 

Badshot

Member
Location
Kent
That is because the black grass is less likely to grow from depth.
Ahdb trials have shown that ploughing can give 70-80% control of black grass however, so it is crazy to rule it out

This is correct, but the flip side is the bg that does come up from depth doesn't get taken out by the pre ems.
 

Badshot

Member
Location
Kent
exactly so if we leave it on the surface will we get better control
Well, I'm hoping so seeing as I've just bought a weaving gd drill .
But I am also dropping secind/spring cereal, got some Linseed in this year. See how it goes but it's looking promising being drilled with the gd.
 

tr250

Member
Location
Northants
Shallower blackgrass is definitely easier to kill and no-till reduces the germination but is definitely not the answer. I've been looking at a field tonight that was drilled with weaving gd into 2 year ley in sept so was as low disturbance as ever possible and there is a bit of bg above the crop but after it being near on 100% clean last year I've not put avadex on it this year so maybe in that scenario the avadex does a very good job
 

Two Tone

Member
Mixed Farmer
Everybody is going to have different ideas and experiences, which make the whole job of Blackgrass control more confusing.

Here, we converted fully from ploughing to Min-till in 2010. By 2012 some of our fields had become so bad with Blackgrass, they were almost unfarmable, even having chucked the kitchen sink at them spray wise!

We then reverted back to rotational plough and saw an improvement, but not enough of one.

By 2016, we had fully returned to ploughing and have it back under control. The amount of Roundup we now use is virtually zero apart from Rape desiccation. Life is just so much easier!

But that is here. Might be completely different everywhere else.


I've now stopped going to Blackgrass control demonstration, because I know what works here and I don't want to become tempted to try something else.
 

goodevans

Member
I
Agree, but my point is more to do with the first bale the contractors drop when they some to the farm. Burn it.
have to agree with you there but I mean the concentration of seed in the swath.brome is a big issue also and you can certainly see brome come up in rows,likewise it can also start to take over in temporary pasture where the mower conditioner thrashes out the seed in rows.burning first bale would be a good idea if in situ as I think the seed falls off the bale
 
Everybody is going to have different ideas and experiences, which make the whole job of Blackgrass control more confusing.

Here, we converted fully from ploughing to Min-till in 2010. By 2012 some of our fields had become so bad with Blackgrass, they were almost unfarmable, even having chucked the kitchen sink at them spray wise!

We then reverted back to rotational plough and saw an improvement, but not enough of one.

By 2016, we had fully returned to ploughing and have it back under control. The amount of Roundup we now use is virtually zero apart from Rape desiccation. Life is just so much easier!

But that is here. Might be completely different everywhere else.


I've now stopped going to Blackgrass control demonstration, because I know what works here and I don't want to become tempted to try something else.

This is where we are at but more so for ryegrass although black grass is here in patches. The plan is year 1 14 inches deep. Year 2 10-11 inches deep. Year 3 7-8 inches deep then try no till again. We are ploughing very slowly at 5km/hr and running as narrow furrow as possible to avoid any holes. Although we’ve discovered 14 inches deep with 12 inch wide furrows doesn’t work to well!
 
So can I say the following , no one reading this , has seen a reduction in bg pressure from no-till drilling

You won't from just no till drilling but the books still open for a complete no till system. Certainly a move to no till drilling with two winter crops and one spring crop does not work. However keeping the soil covered and growing something all year round might assist but I think you need to be looking at a 6 crop rotation to make it work really.

I've come to the conclusion though that its probably not worth the hassle and extra management because we are all heading for organic farming anyway so the plough will be prevalent as to do that without one is really going to cause an issue. spending £20/acre to plough isn't going to cause an issue growing 3t of wheat at £300/tonne is it!
 

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