Fallow it or crop it.?

glasshouse said:

To where exactly?
To the 2000 acre Aha they have down the road or owned outright?
Once you are on that treadmill of lease payments on large machines there aint no way off it.
Landlord says jump and you have to answer how high

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Wombat said:

We were a few days from drilling something, then as usual it’s turned to crap

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Mr Charisma said:

We were drying up a couple of weeks ago but still a long way of thinking about drilling .
Bloody wet again now
My bean comment was that after growing spring beans for 10 years or so that they have to be put in well ,,,,,,, that's just not going to happen around here

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farmerm said:

Had the dry window been just a couple of days longer we would have got something drilled... 40+mm in the past week and some was really intense 4 weeks before the door closes on winter wheat here, it doesn't look hopeful . Bit the bullet and ordered some extortionate Spring Wheat yesterday but not enough to replace all the planned winter wheat... Spring Bean ground is ploughed so it should weather and go in well as long as we get a dry window in March/Early April and then some spring rain to kick start them...

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Flat 10 said:

I bet that will become a problem......

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DrWazzock said:

It's like a spiders web. They entangle you bit by bit, then finally suck all the juice out of you.
It's a rotten system that doesn't allow the working man the full benefit of his labours. There afe always others creaming it off for little effort or risk.

As grandfather used to say "it will never be right in our time".

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farmerm said:

Probably! That's why despite having plenty of Sping Beans in the shed, the current 30% hole in cropping plan version F isn't getting filled with Sp Beans. For risk management and long term rotation, I would rather fallow it! A spring drought would equally be a big problem whatever is spring drilled though.

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teslacoils said:

2018 was a bloody awful spring. Can I get by with bps, mid tier, bit of silage? Not without last year's good harvest. But I'm not in it to survive, I'm in it to make money. So even if it's a disaster we'll be setting up for a good autumn planting.

This is my current head scratcher. Volunteer winter barley. It looks a carpet, but mainly as each plant has goodness knows how many tillers. It's to weedy to leave to harvest grain, but for very little cost I could put digestate on it, and a sniff of proline and a blw herbicide, then now it in June. Alternately I could spray it off in Feb and drill with oats for the grain. There are 130ac like this.

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teslacoils said:

2018 was a bloody awful spring. Can I get by with bps, mid tier, bit of silage? Not without last year's good harvest. But I'm not in it to survive, I'm in it to make money. So even if it's a disaster we'll be setting up for a good autumn planting.

This is my current head scratcher. Volunteer winter barley. It looks a carpet, but mainly as each plant has goodness knows how many tillers. It's to weedy to leave to harvest grain, but for very little cost I could put digestate on it, and a sniff of proline and a blw herbicide, then now it in June. Alternately I could spray it off in Feb and drill with oats for the grain. There are 130ac like this.

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Mr Charisma said:

I have 50 acres of failed rape with a excellent crop of barley in it as well, very clean apart from BLW but the bit that worries me is bydv, whereas no one else on here thinks its a problem I've seen near on complete devistation, current plan is to drill linseed straight in after spraying it off,
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Tricky one. My sympathies. Have similar here with a couple of potential fields where nice covering of volunteer wheat and few weeds. I too have seen severe BYDV and it is truly devastating, so am conscious that experience colours my judgement. Others who have never seen such can be blissfully ignorant and able to make a clearer call. Until they are caught. Can test leaves for virus, but of little use as have then to gauge how many plants affected and the severity. I keep telling myself it was a pretty awful autumn for aphids too!!

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teslacoils said:

We had ears out 23rd may last year but I have no idea what quantity of biomass we could grow by then. I expect we would see any bydv before we need to kill it anyway. Given the wet, there is very little yellowing.

Im only set to make £100 an acre off a good spring crop. Id spray the blws, put on 100kg N, and some manganese.

Late June would be too late I think. Peak biomass last year was second week of June. If it could be mown mid June......although it may make the mower conditioner cough.

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Mr Charisma said:

I have 50 acres of failed rape with a excellent crop of barley in it as well, very clean apart from BLW but the bit that worries me is bydv, whereas no one else on here thinks its a problem I've seen near on complete devistation, current plan is to drill linseed straight in after spraying it off,

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Mr Charisma said:

Begs the question that if we have the spring from hell and planted nothing could we survive with little income

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teslacoils said:

2018 was a bloody awful spring. Can I get by with bps, mid tier, bit of silage? Not without last year's good harvest. But I'm not in it to survive, I'm in it to make money. So even if it's a disaster we'll be setting up for a good autumn planting.

This is my current head scratcher. Volunteer winter barley. It looks a carpet, but mainly as each plant has goodness knows how many tillers. It's to weedy to leave to harvest grain, but for very little cost I could put digestate on it, and a sniff of proline and a blw herbicide, then now it in June. Alternately I could spray it off in Feb and drill with oats for the grain. There are 130ac like this.

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glasshouse said:

Why not herbicide it , nitrogen and combine it?
I would

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teslacoils said:

Blackgrass.

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