OSR Drilling 2019

Brisel

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Midlands
People that drilled early what’s the flea beetle like?

My turnips have been emerged for a week. Minimal shot holing so far. On osr stubbles there's no fresh grazing of volunteers either though the early shedding stuff from tramlines was munched quite hard.
 

matthewizod

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Chipping norton
Cleaned off the heap today, now to cut the barley ahead of it..
827620
 

Lincsman

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
Just beginning to see the odd one plant being damaged. Earliest stuff has two good true leaves now so getting safer.

The plants will be bigger and not die, but what about massive infestations within the plant that then wont grow away next spring... which was seen around here last spring.
 
The plants will be bigger and not die, but what about massive infestations within the plant that then wont grow away next spring... which was seen around here last spring.

Our observations have been that the bigger the plants and the thicker the stems coming into the spring the less able the larvae are to get into the main stems and really knock the plant. I do not say this is definitely true, but it seems to work for us especially when you consider pigeons and black-grass on top of CSFB (again we find big early crops that can beat pigeons give easily the best black-grass control than later drillings). I think some with much more fertile soils, and perhaps fewer pigeons, can get away with September drilling after the main surge in CSFB pressure. We do not have these conditions and so do not attempt it.
 

Lincsman

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
Our observations have been that the bigger the plants and the thicker the stems coming into the spring the less able the larvae are to get into the main stems and really knock the plant. I do not say this is definitely true, but it seems to work for us especially when you consider pigeons and black-grass on top of CSFB (again we find big early crops that can beat pigeons give easily the best black-grass control than later drillings). I think some with much more fertile soils, and perhaps fewer pigeons, can get away with September drilling after the main surge in CSFB pressure. We do not have these conditions and so do not attempt it.

My experience last year was the late afterthought crop drilled sept 14th with off heap seed yielded by far the best, flea beetles had stopped migrating by then.
 

Adeptandy

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
PE15
My experience last year was the late afterthought crop drilled sept 14th with off heap seed yielded by far the best, flea beetles had stopped migrating by then.
I'm beginning to think its more luck than anything, drilled end of September last year and it was gone in days :banghead:
 
My experience last year was the late afterthought crop drilled sept 14th with off heap seed yielded by far the best, flea beetles had stopped migrating by then.

We have high pigeon and black-grass pressure which makes this late drilling option much more risky in these two respects. Do you have FYM / sludge inputs on your ground? Don't say that doesn't work for you. I only report what has worked tolerably well for us to add to the debate.

Finished our last field today which is quite a bit later than we would like. Fair chance it will be emerging when the flea beetle surge happens.
 

Brisel

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Midlands
I haven't planted any osr yet! The prime time for the best yields are the last 2 weeks in August, but that is when the flea beetle are most active.
 

Bogweevil

Member
For what it is worth (pest numbers will always be sensationally higher near OSR than root brassicas):
827874

And for 2018:

827875
 

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only planting 55ha compared with 210 last year because we only harvested 60 ha this year

rape has always been a difficult crop to get right early drill in a dry summer later drilling in a wet summer never produced a good yield especially since the end of straw burning
rape needs to be on higher fertile free draining soils where root crops have been traditionally grown or on land that has 50% livestock years in the rotation

the average net margin on rape is no better than beans second wheat or spring barley
it takes more labour and machinery and pest control so should have higher fixed costs
reducing rape reduces overall costs

my 55ha will be planted when the wheat is harvested notill drilled after the straw is removed
on that farm the straw comes back as cow muck and slurry
 

Brisel

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Midlands
We're now in the last two weeks !

Starting mid week. I've only got 530 acres to sow and a 6m direct drill to do it with, so reasonable firepower when conditions are right & I'll stop again if there isn't enough soil moisture to get the crop up & away. Only 4 fields are cleared of crop and straw out of 22 anyway. If we're in for a long run of dry weather I will stop, switch to cover crops & restart 1st September regardless as that will miss the CSFB (in theory!).
 

Two Tone

Member
Mixed Farmer
Wanted to make an early start of drilling OSR today. But it’s raining again!
Which means it will now be Wednesday before the Combine can get going again.
It’ll take me 2 days to get my OSR drilling done, which means I could have stayed in bed a bit longer today.
Hey-ho!

I’ve just been down to look at some lighter land fields and despite the rain, they will still drill. So I’m going to make a start shortly.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 80 42.3%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 66 34.9%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 15.9%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 7 3.7%

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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