Won't be long now to the iresposible use of liquid sunshine .

tw15

Member
Location
DORSET
Its that time of year again that after a few hot days and the Winter barley is starting to turn that some still have the need to rush it on . Pure golden fields with a little bit of green in tramlines and no patience so have to round up it off .
You hear all the reasons why
1 Got to get on as have so much to do .
2 Evens it up
3 Speeds it up
4 Lowers the moisture content etc

Answers
1 Don.t be a greedy bugger and want to farm the whole county/ and better management of machinery. ie plenty of combine capacity No law to say you can't have a older combine to pull out the shed to help out in times of need .
2 Nature will ripen it with time
2Patience
4 Patience again it will ripen off with time .

The list goes on yes if you have a real bad weed problem (stern words with agronomist needed to sharpen up ). I can see the reasons but if not why oh why do they want to cost themselves more money and eat into the very slim profit margin .
Rant over , tin hat firmly on , head down :facepalm: .
 

teslacoils

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
Excellent rant. Now to suggest that many direct drillers could reduce their roundup usage by adopting the plough. I mean, it's only a bit of extra cost. They probably just don't have the skill to properly operate one of the oldest bits of agricultural kit. But then, they are only doing it to save money......like I am with dessicating. Save on drying, save on fuel, save on sanity.

Just the flip side.
 

DrWazzock

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
I can't wait to burn the rape off. It's disappearing under a scabby mess of field pansy cranesbill and mayweed because I missed out the Metazachlor and relied on the centium and Astrokerb. Next year plough and apply Metazachlor at 2 leaf then shut the gate.

I will be letting the cereals ripen naturally, except for the odd patch of twitch.
 
And on the other side, those in the West and North find it an essential tool. A few litres of 360 saves thousands of gallons of derv in the dryer, massive reduction in fossil fuels. The straw is fitter and bales better in dessicated crops, less fusty straw- less pneumonia in cattle etc. Cleaner start to next year's crops. The benefits are numerous and go far beyond harvest day.
 

Brisel

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Midlands
Its that time of year again that after a few hot days and the Winter barley is starting to turn that some still have the need to rush it on . Pure golden fields with a little bit of green in tramlines and no patience so have to round up it off .
You hear all the reasons why
1 Got to get on as have so much to do .
2 Evens it up
3 Speeds it up
4 Lowers the moisture content etc

Answers
1 Don.t be a greedy bugger and want to farm the whole county/ and better management of machinery. ie plenty of combine capacity No law to say you can't have a older combine to pull out the shed to help out in times of need .
2 Nature will ripen it with time
2Patience
4 Patience again it will ripen off with time .

The list goes on yes if you have a real bad weed problem (stern words with agronomist needed to sharpen up ). I can see the reasons but if not why oh why do they want to cost themselves more money and eat into the very slim profit margin .
Rant over , tin hat firmly on , head down :facepalm: .

You can say that as you're not growing oilseed rape this year. Of course you won't be desiccating your soya pre harvest ;):whistle: Come and look at my oilseed rape & tell me how I'm going to cut it without desiccant. Where the flea beetle has hit the crop it's a mass of weeds - even you wouldn't volunteer to cut that direct without desiccant with your old combine! Try growing Hereward milling wheat without it and see how your Hagberg looked. The use of pre harvest desiccants in weedy crops lowers the viability of the immature seeds. It's a useful tool, if used responsibly.

I have no plans to spray off anything else. Wheat & barley look clean - if the spring oats stay green for too long because of my strobilurin use I may give them a litre to finish the straw off.

I think the message is to avoid using it as much as possible. Pre harvest use carries the highest likelihood of residues getting into the end product & patience would be a better way of cutting when ripe. The residue levels will be what gets it banned IMO. It's endemic in bread, beer etc. even though it is below the legal threshold for any kind of toxicity. I agree with your comment on the lazy use of it. Glyphosate is already in the firing line with lots of incorrect facts in the media. We will all mourn its loss - you in particular with your no till system...
 
I think the message is to avoid using it as much as possible. Pre harvest use carries the highest likelihood of residues getting into the end product & patience would be a better way of cutting when ripe. The residue levels will be what gets it banned IMO. It's endemic in bread, beer etc. even though it is below the legal threshold for any kind of toxicity. I agree with your comment on the lazy use of it. Glyphosate is already in the firing line with lots of incorrect facts in the media. We will all mourn its loss - you in particular with your no till system...

This is hitting nail on head....

So...decide not to apply to anything pre-harvest unless absolutely necessary (ie rubbish osr)
Solve the Hereward hagberg problem by not growing Hereward ! etc etc

Brisel, i would contend the marginal benefit of hitting immature weed seeds pre-harvest cannot in any current context be considered "using glyphosate responsibly" Certainly not if there is any chance said crop is going for human consumption.

Armour plated tin hat on.
 

Brisel

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Midlands
I've stopped growing milling wheat, especially Hereward!

If the alternative to multiple unsustainable resistance prone selective herbicides e.g. Kerb, Atlantis is a litre of glyphosate pre harvest, isn't that Integrated Crop Management? If it resulted in residues in the end product then fair enough. So many angles to this highly contentious debate.
 

teslacoils

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
So...decide not to apply to anything pre-harvest unless absolutely necessary (ie rubbish osr).

I'd go a touch different in thinking if you wan to dessicate you need to be thinking about it earlier. Osr wants four weeks post roundup. Cereals want three. That's the patience.

With modern sprayers and drones it should be possible to drive through a field and spray the tramline wheelings and laid / weedy areas alone - it's too late getting the combine to the field and then having to get the sprayer out.
 

Badshot

Member
Location
Kent
Stupid is as stupid does.
I'm not intending to dessicate anything, including linseed unless I absolutely have to.
Osr I think is clean enough, it's going to central store anyway so they can sort it out there.
Wheat, no need at all.
Beans, clean enough so no need.
Linseed, the notes reckon if you want to chop the straw it needs to be green still, we'll see.
 

Wombat

Member
BASIS
Location
East yorks
Depends when we start cutting these, normally try not to but if it looks like wheat and spring barley are going to be August bank holiday or later the odd bit might get some
 

7610 super q

Never Forgotten
Honorary Member
I'll be doing it for the first time ever on WB here. The Timothy grass that did f**k all for 4 years previously has suddenly decided to grow rampantly in my WB.
Me very bad farmer indeed.
 

DRC

Member
I don’t normally do any, but after trying a bit of min till this year, I’ve got too much wheat growing in one field of barley, so I’m probably now going to make a mess, driving a tractor through a tall crop. The fields I ploughed are clean enough. Otherwise nothing will get done here.
 

DRC

Member
And on the other side, those in the West and North find it an essential tool. A few litres of 360 saves thousands of gallons of derv in the dryer, massive reduction in fossil fuels. The straw is fitter and bales better in dessicated crops, less fusty straw- less pneumonia in cattle etc. Cleaner start to next year's crops. The benefits are numerous and go far beyond harvest day.
What rate do you use to desiccate Will? Is it a high enough rate to actually do a job on grass weeds .
 
I've stopped growing milling wheat, especially Hereward!

If the alternative to multiple unsustainable resistance prone selective herbicides e.g. Kerb, Atlantis is a litre of glyphosate pre harvest, isn't that Integrated Crop Management? If it resulted in residues in the end product then fair enough. So many angles to this highly contentious debate.

Nope its really simple.
Integrated Pest/Crop Management are industry in house tactics and buzz words. Outside of ag no-one cares.

" It's endemic in bread, beer etc. even though it is below the legal threshold for any kind of toxicity. " Your quote, all over facebook, backed by data apparently all over testing labs. THIS is what the public / legislators actually care about.

"The residue levels will be what gets it banned IMO." Agreed
 
What rate do you use to desiccate Will? Is it a high enough rate to actually do a job on grass weeds .

Usually between 3/4 litres a Ha. Broadway star and rotation means mercifully few grass weeds.

Needs to on in good time usually around Oswestry show week in readiness for cutting when the Onslow stream rally in on. One for the locals there.

Using it 7/10 days before cutting is a waste of time. Sprayed off crops always 1 to 2 % dryer than those which aren't. Sprayed of crops flow though our elderly Dominator a lot better as well.
 

snarling bee

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Bedfordshire
IMO it needs to be used more selectively that it currently is.

If you are only going for greens in the tramlines, then don't spray off the whole boom width. If just green headlands then only do those.
I do think a certain combine manufacturer has a lot to answer for. Advocating the use of glypho to improve the annual capacity of their combines. Shameful.
I use it rarely in cereals and pulses. It must have an impact on yield, and there are wheeling and chassis losses up the tramline. Normally when the grain is 30% (timing for roundup) it is only a week of average weather and it is below 15% anyway. Can't see the point.
 

kc6475

Member
Location
Notts
Only the rape will be done here, can't understand the people that spray just because of the green in the tramlines, by the time the tractor has been through you have ran the green growth down anyway, one year our tramlines were really bad so I just ran the spray tractor up and down the wheelings and job done.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 77 43.5%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 62 35.0%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 28 15.8%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.7%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.7%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 4 2.3%

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

  • 1,285
  • 1
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/
Top