OSR next year

Clive · May 4, 2020

wellingtonfarmer said:
@Clive if an effective insectide was bought out to control flea battle but also killed beneficials would you grow osr and use it?

tough question ! i think that would depend how specific it was re beneficials really

i would really rather not go back to damaging the ecosystem being insecticide free seems to have built

Renaultman · May 4, 2020

snarling bee said:
If I do grow any it will be:
a) early August 'seeded'
b) on a smallish area
c) into a crop/high stubble/cover

Otherwise a few beans, a bit of barley, and lots of wheat.

Similar definitely a and b
My C is sub soil or deep cultivate (this is the first year I haven't)
D) seedbed nitrogen, not just FYM or digestate.

Fubar · May 4, 2020

The trouble is osr is a good break crop and there is a market for it. If we all drop it and jump into extra beans / spring oats / barley where are we going to sell these crops? Is there a ready market that is not going to be undermined by increased acerage? Self sufficiency in home grown proteins is a nice thought but we need a pea/ bean that is as protein rich as soya.
The holy grail is a soya bean that can be grown in our climate without too much yield penalty and is ripe by early September. Will such a thing ever appear?

Renaultman · May 4, 2020

ajd132 said:
Remember it’s usually down to poor management (I.e me!) rather than the system.

Sometimes, you can have the best system and the best management but the weather will still beat you. Showed a picture of my W barley to a notill pal tonight, just to show it had shot. He then went on to a thousand and one questions why it looked so thin. I actually didn't think it looked so bad myself, considering what it has had to put up with he wouldn't accept the weather as a reason either. We have agreed to leave it till harvest before further comment.

ajd132 · May 5, 2020

Properjob said:
I would say its down to the weather and how it suits a system. I would say good management is about being flexible and adapting to the weather. No one has perfect crops all the time nor sells everything at the top of the market. What is interesting with farm benchmarking is that the top 10% of producers with respect to profit can, but not always, have high input systems, but have consistent high output. It is a really useful exercise to get consultants such as Andersons etc to analyse actual performance within a given sector and not many of the top 10% have very low input systems. By the way the only drill we own is a 750a so do DD when appropriate and a Bio-drill on a Topdown.

Interestingly I have done an excercise yesterday that consists of plotting in a graph on excel all of our CFA performances for the last ten years against both strutts and Bidwells average returns on their annual surveys which has been interesting (and quite pleasing).
I agree with what you are saying about lower input systems but farming is changing quickly now, chemicals are going at a rapid rate and bps is going, carbon taxes on fertilisers also looks likely and the phosphate mines are running out! Will be interesting to see who is top for net profit in 2 years time on combinables farms.

ajd132 · May 5, 2020

Renaultman said:
Sometimes, you can have the best system and the best management but the weather will still beat you. Showed a picture of my W barley to a notill pal tonight, just to show it had shot. He then went on to a thousand and one questions why it looked so thin. I actually didn't think it looked so bad myself, considering what it has had to put up with he wouldn't accept the weather as a reason either. We have agreed to leave it till harvest before further comment.

I can usually find something I have done that hasn’t helped even when the weather does go bad.

Renaultman · May 5, 2020

ajd132 said:
I can usually find something I have done that hasn’t helped even when the weather does go bad.

True but imo the weather is often our biggest adversary, if we have got timings wrong , due to weather issues, who do you blame?

Flat 10 · May 5, 2020

Properjob said:
I would say its down to the weather and how it suits a system. I would say good management is about being flexible and adapting to the weather. No one has perfect crops all the time nor sells everything at the top of the market. What is interesting with farm benchmarking is that the top 10% of producers with respect to profit can, but not always, have high input systems, but have consistent high output. It is a really useful exercise to get consultants such as Andersons etc to analyse actual performance within a given sector and not many of the top 10% have very low input systems. By the way the only drill we own is a 750a so do DD when appropriate and a Bio-drill on a Topdown.

You can get a lot of good information from the farm business survey run by universities rather than pay consultants.....
It’s trends will be similar.

ajd132 · May 5, 2020

Renaultman said:
True but imo the weather is often our biggest adversary, if we have got timings wrong , due to weather issues, who do you blame?

Probably ourselves at the moment because our systems aren’t geared towards dealing with these extremes of weather that is becoming a trend. All about the soil! We shouldn’t go from sludge to concrete in 5 days. I take your point though it is our main adversary personally I want to get better at mitigating it’s affects.

snarling bee · May 5, 2020

Flat 10 said:
You can get a lot of good information from the farm business survey run by universities rather than pay consultants.....
It’s trends will be similar.

I take part in the farm business survey.
For arable farming with contract farming the FBS is meaningless. I am half owned and half contract farming, yet all my machinery and labour costs are spread over my owned acreage (meaning per acre they are twice as much as in reality) and the contract income is classed as other income or something equally meaningless. You cannot benchmark from it at all.
They also classed us as a pig farm. We are in reality combinable crops with a relatively small B & B pig unit, whose costs/income can very easily be split out. It was a fight to get it changed. It's BS. I was a phone call away from telling them not to waste my and the industry's time.

snarling bee · May 5, 2020

ajd132 said:
Interestingly I have done an excercise yesterday that consists of plotting in a graph on excel all of our CFA performances for the last ten years against both strutts and Bidwells average returns on their annual surveys which has been interesting (and quite pleasing).

I have done the same and yes it is quite pleasing.
Part of the reason is because of the exorbitant fees removed from the system by the leaches that are the agents. They are quite useful figures to share with any grumbling customers though, (who think they can run 2 Range Rovers, a big house and a full time gardener off a small combinable crops farm).

4course · May 5, 2020

We dropped w.osr years ago and not missed it up to now, the biggest factor in the last few years has been the the reduction in slug pellets now for the 5th year running we havnt used any or very few and had better ww plus more worms that is other than the wet this winter but dont think any osr would have survived. This year we have field scale experiments in sp barley which could well be a route we could take in the future even though for years have said I wouldnt grow it . so far the direct costs of getting it to establish has been low and could have been even less if we had set out to grow it, future spend looks to be going to be less ,all will depend on final output and if we can harvest it early enough to sow grass or a catch crop for sheep/without compromise

SilliamWhale · May 5, 2020

Properjob said:
I would say its down to the weather and how it suits a system. I would say good management is about being flexible and adapting to the weather. No one has perfect crops all the time nor sells everything at the top of the market. What is interesting with farm benchmarking is that the top 10% of producers with respect to profit can, but not always, have high input systems, but have consistent high output. It is a really useful exercise to get consultants such as Andersons etc to analyse actual performance within a given sector and not many of the top 10% have very low input systems. By the way the only drill we own is a 750a so do DD when appropriate and a Bio-drill on a Topdown.

I sort of agree with you about the weather etc. But there is always a time in the year where we can look back and say we could have done something better on a certain day, before or after the rain, should have sold 3 weeks before or after etc. So in that respect it is still about management.

SilliamWhale · May 5, 2020

Feldspar said:
I though some management systems are more forgiving that others though in the short term. I.e. might be on the road to ruin but less likely to have a complete disaster in any one year. OSR feels like that now. You can say it was my fault for 100 ac of rape being rubbish because it drilled it too late and that probably was foreseeable, but it's quite unforgiving when you get a crop having to be written off now that looked fine even in February.

Its not about being "your fault" as it were. We know there are loads of unknowns

Fwiw I totally f**ked up all my rape this (last) year as the SU carryover meant none of it germinated. Big big mistake of mine. I've since moved on to Zypar so hope for better things!

Brisel · May 5, 2020

SilliamWhale said:
Its not about being "your fault" as it were. We know there are loads of unknowns

Fwiw I totally fudgeed up all my rape this (last) year as the SU carryover meant none of it germinated. Big big mistake of mine. I've since moved on to Zypar so hope for better things!

What do you mean by SU carryover? Full rate metsulfuron on the previous crop in June?

SilliamWhale · May 5, 2020

Brisel said:
What do you mean by SU carryover? Full rate metsulfuron on the previous crop in June?

Not full rate but too much. I had rbwh and i had it too hot a mix. I got away with it year before but not last year. So changed approach - moved onto Kyleo pre spring barley drilling and then zypar.

I pushed it and got my fingers burned

Rihards · May 5, 2020

Brisel said:
What do you mean by SU carryover? Full rate metsulfuron on the previous crop in June?

how You think metiltribuneron makes much less demage for following brasica crops in the same year?

Brisel · May 5, 2020

Rihards said:
how You think metiltribuneron makes much less demage for following brasica crops in the same year?

Which active ingredient are you referring to there please? Tribenuron?

Fubar · May 5, 2020

4course said:
We dropped w.osr years ago and not missed it up to now, the biggest factor in the last few years has been the the reduction in slug pellets now for the 5th year running we havnt used any or very few and had better ww plus more worms that is other than the wet this winter but dont think any osr would have survived. This year we have field scale experiments in sp barley which could well be a route we could take in the future even though for years have said I wouldnt grow it . so far the direct costs of getting it to establish has been low and could have been even less if we had set out to grow it, future spend looks to be going to be less ,all will depend on final output and if we can harvest it early enough to sow grass or a catch crop for sheep/without compromise

What have you replaced osr with as a cereal break?

SilliamWhale · May 5, 2020

Brisel said:
Which active ingredient are you referring to there please? Tribenuron?

Think Tribenuron is considered more safe isn't it?

OSR next year

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