I should have added a smiley to mine, didn’t mean to be so abrupt....
Ben Taylor-Davies black grass talk
- Thread starter Feldspar
- Start date
Its 70-80% of what remains is viable as I understand it. A decreasing number but longer than 5 years.
If you started with 1000 blackgrass seeds/m2 with a 70% knockdown every year after 5 years 168 seeds survive?
My second attempt doing this sum makes it 2.4 seeds surviving. If so its less than I thought
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- Location
- Lincolnshire.
Completely correct. It’s impossible to eradicate so why worry. One just has to do what works economically on your site.
So, in summary, use a wide and continuous variety of methods to control weeds and don’t rely on one single method?
- Location
- Suffolk
If you read his report you will see that it simply isn’t enough... we are slowly selecting plants that thrive in the spring drilling window and the early and late autumn drilling window.
- Location
- Suffolk
Something we should have asked Ben... in all his travels around the world, has anyone thought “I’ll grow blackgrass as a cash crop”
- Location
- Lincolnshire.
Well yeah. React to what you see. Of course there are concerns I would find it difficult to produce winter cereals without flufenacet, but I doubt I’m on my own in that! mechanical weeding and band spraying could be on the horizon who knows? Bg has always been a problem historically here so far solutions have been found!
My level of concern fluctuates with the weather. As a marsh farmer I can assure you that bg likes it wet.
I think the marsh grass comment further up in the thread was more about an environment that doesn't suit competitor species to blackgrass rather than the ideal habitat for it as such. It certainly likes continuous winter cropping, sown at low seed rates in August or September - basically the inverse of these popular control measures;
Source: https://cereals.ahdb.org.uk/media/433525/is30-black-grass-solutions-to-the-problem.pdf
- Location
- Lincolnshire.
My experience is that it is favoured by wet weather. Other sites may be different. 
yellow belly
Member
- Location
- south west lincolnshire
Some points I have personal experience with black grass
On no till some seeds fall down cracks and are deeper
Flufenacet plus Avadex plus pendimethalin has done 100% compared to with Lexus 98%
If it takes 5 years for adaption the assumption is the crop is either all winter or all spring
I find that double spring breaks then a winter crops then a single spring then a double winter
Spring crops usually in the later half of drilling timing with no skimping on stack
Spring applied Avadex is near on 100 %when used
Spring beans were a good partner to Avadex when it was legal we need it back
I do also think that too many people under estimate the additional effectiveness of soil acting herbicides in no till to my knowledge there has not been many if any comparative trials on no till cropping situation
On no till some seeds fall down cracks and are deeper
Flufenacet plus Avadex plus pendimethalin has done 100% compared to with Lexus 98%
If it takes 5 years for adaption the assumption is the crop is either all winter or all spring
I find that double spring breaks then a winter crops then a single spring then a double winter
Spring crops usually in the later half of drilling timing with no skimping on stack
Spring applied Avadex is near on 100 %when used
Spring beans were a good partner to Avadex when it was legal we need it back
I do also think that too many people under estimate the additional effectiveness of soil acting herbicides in no till to my knowledge there has not been many if any comparative trials on no till cropping situation
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- Location
- Berkshire
Yes, “the four charts you ever need to know about bg” are very useful...
Feldspar
Member
- Location
- Essex, Cambs and Suffolk
We had some overwinter stubble once on nice fertile ground. The biomass was such that I genuinely considered ringing up the local AD plant to see if there was enough there for it to be worth them coming.
Feldspar
Member
- Location
- Essex, Cambs and Suffolk
My experience is that it is favoured by wet weather. Other sites may be different.
I think that's the right way to put it. Is favoured by wet weather not because it likes it but because the wheat generally likes it less. He had this technical term which I forget which is the name for the snorkel like tubes that black-grass can create to do the job of breathing air down to the roots in waterlogged conditions. Claim was that wheat can't do this and so is out competed.
Feldspar
Member
- Location
- Essex, Cambs and Suffolk
I have a worry about over use of flufenacet and triallate. There is research showing that after persistent use of both they start to lose efficacy. I think the mechanism for the latter is organisms build up in the soil to break the triallate down. For flufenacet I can't remember the mechanism, but I think it was similar. Same happens for propyzamide. Hence why I try not to use either in spring crops to change it up.
Agree that seed falling down cracks is a real menace. Plays merry hell with the leave it on top and then turn down idea.
How about concentrating on treating the cause and not treating the symptoms of all of the so called pests that we have to deal with in farming? I find that the wider the rotation, the less tillage I do,the less treated seed I use, the more covercrops I grow, the less weeds and pests I have. Treating symptoms will never cure the problem
Feldspar
Member
- Location
- Essex, Cambs and Suffolk
Ben's point was that the impact of plant competition is under recognised in the numbers we see. I.e. promising trials work not persisted with. Certainly if you have a blocked coulter on the Claydon you soon see what plant competition does. Blooming gaps we have with our drill this year are going to come back and haunt me.
Feldspar
Member
- Location
- Essex, Cambs and Suffolk
One person's cause is another person's symptom. One person's cause is another person's irrelevance. Personally I have found widening my rotation with things like spring beans to be a disaster. Get far better control in winter cereals than the nemesis that is spring beans! Worst black-grass has been in the least competitive crop stands of whatever crop - patches in OSR, patches in winter barley and patches in spring barley. I really don't see that no-till has given us better black-grass control. I just use it as a way of managing where the soil is the in seedbed. Can't see how treated seed affects black-grass. Have had least competitive crops where we have had cover crops and the soil has failed to warm and dry in the spring which in turn let black-grass in.
Fair enough, that has been your experience ,it's not been mine, one thing is for sure, keep doing the same thing and expect to cure it with something out of a can, or a robot is doomed to failure
Feldspar
Member
- Location
- Essex, Cambs and Suffolk
I think that was Ben's point: don't keep doing the same thing. I think though that by changing cultivation, cropping, herbicide programmes I am addressing the cause as much as you are. I don't buy this idea that under conservation agriculture the soil is so happy that it simply laughs the black-grass off into next century. Point was also made, react to your own local situation and population. If what you are doing is working (as in actually working because I've seen some direct drilling farmers who seem to fail to notice all the black-grass in their crops (and I am NOT immune to this too) it doesn't suit their vision to notice it), then sod everyone else and persist.