State of your crops?

Two Tone · Mar 12, 2021

T Hectares said:
How do the two crops compare @Two Tone ??

Very happy with the comparison of W Barley on light land. On the Medium to Heavy land the GD’d W Barley does not quite so good as the conventional, but it’s OK.

With the Wheat, both Light and Medium GD’d stuff is very good. But on the Heavy stuff drilled end Sept, 5 days before Storm Alex in Early October, the Jury is still out as to how much of it we will have to replant with Spring Wheat. Probably about 20%.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. I wish I had drilled that heavy land wheat 2 weeks earlier (Mid Sept) before I drilled anything else and it would have been fine.

On that heavy land, where BASF did a trial with Crystal and had a strip where no Chem was applied at all, the wheat looks fantastic.......Unfortunately so does the Blackgrass in it!
The rest of those fields are very clean from Blackgrass, as is the Light and medium land Of Both Wheat and Barley.
I’ll definitely be altering my Pre-em stack of 4 litres Crystal plus 0.2 DFF, followed by Avadex on all the GD’d stuff next year! That storm washed it all down the GD’s slot and hammered the wheat!

Bearing in mind I specifically chose the GD because of minimal disturbance so as not to disturb the BG seed, I think I can hold off certainly the Crystal+DFF until post emergence on the GD’d land.

The Linseed, all GD drilled all looks great.

If I do patch any of the Heavy land Wheat in with Spring Wheat, this will be my only Spring drilling this season on this farm.

T Hectares · Mar 12, 2021

Two Tone said:
Very happy with the comparison of W Barley on light land. On the Medium to Heavy land the GD’d W Barley does not quite so good as the conventional, but it’s OK.

With the Wheat, both Light and Medium GD’d stuff is very good. But on the Heavy stuff drilled end Sept, 5 days before Storm Alex in Early October, the Jury is still out as to how much of it we will have to replant with Spring Wheat. Probably about 20%.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. I wish I had drilled that heavy land wheat 2 weeks earlier (Mid Sept) before I drilled anything else and it would have been fine.

On that heavy land, where BASF did a trial with Crystal and had a strip where no Chem was applied at all, the wheat looks fantastic.......Unfortunately so does the Blackgrass in it!
The rest of those fields are very clean from Blackgrass, as is the Light and medium land Of Both Wheat and Barley.
I’ll definitely be altering my Pre-em stack of 4 litres Crystal plus 0.2 DFF, followed by Avadex on all the GD’d stuff next year! That storm washed it all down the GD’s slot and hammered the wheat!

Bearing in mind I specifically chose the GD because of minimal disturbance so as not to disturb the BG seed, I think I can hold off certainly the Crystal+DFF until post emergence on the GD’d land.

The Linseed, all GD drilled all looks great.

If I do patch any of the Heavy land Wheat in with Spring Wheat, this will be my only Spring drilling this season on this farm.

Thanks for the info, I know of somebody else who had the same pre em issues as you, interestingly with the same drill !!

Brisel · Mar 12, 2021

How soon after the pre em was the heavy rain? The herbicides should bind to the soil within a few days which makes them less mobile. You need good slot closure too.

teslacoils · Mar 12, 2021

Brisel said:
How soon after the pre em was the heavy rain? The herbicides should bind to the soil within a few days which makes them less mobile. You need good slot closure too.

I've seen transient, but initially very extreme bleaching in barley ten days after a strong pdm stack. White as a ghost. Looked like complete crop destruction. But I've never actually killed anything.

@Two Tone what were the previous crops? Did you bale, and when would you ideally be drilled up on heavy land? Slugs?

Two Tone · Mar 12, 2021

Brisel said:
How soon after the pre em was the heavy rain? The herbicides should bind to the soil within a few days which makes them less mobile. You need good slot closure too.

Slot closure was good, but it wasn’t going to stop 5”of rain in 2 day getting that Crystal and DFF into those slots !
The pre em went on 5 days before that storm. It definitely re mobilised. You could clearly see the yellow Crystal washed off the previous Spring oats stubble.

I’ve just got to put it down to experience and sheer bad luck. I’m not put off the idea of the GD at all.

Those 3 field we a failed crop of OSR, that I did the Spring Oats No-til trials in last year. They had a large dose of Muck on before they were ploughed prior to drilling the OSR. I’m fairly certain that land slumped, only to have almost self repaired in the drought of last summer.
But I’m seriously considering ploughing it again ahead of next year’s W Barley crop, as a reset/re-boot. Hopefully, they will be the only fields I will plough and conventionally drill this Autumn.

I’ve often found that a new crop following a bad crop, will yield as a bumper crop, to make up for the bad one. However, I want to give it every chance to be able to do so!

IMO, subsoiling ahead of the GD will endanger the my BG situation again. So the only alternative is to plough it properly, in good conditions and bury the bloody stuff while breaking that slump up.

Don’t forget, where I have used the GD on the rest of the farm, I couldn’t hardly be more pleased with!
I like early drilling and it is suited to it. So many times I have looked at the stubbles I have been ploughing and thought it rather silly to bury what looks like rather a good seedbed, if only I had the right drill to use at that time. Hence the GD!

But, IMO I can’t stress enough that I need a drill that causes the absolute minimum soil disturbance so as NOT to wake up the BG, to be able to drill that early. So far, that side of it seems to work well too. Overall, my BG situation hasn’t suffered compared to what I have previously found to be the best solution to it, being proper, good ploughing to bury it.

teslacoils · Mar 12, 2021

Yes, best looking crops of osr round here are all after fallow aka failed / tragic osr crops.

bobk · Mar 12, 2021

teslacoils said:
Yes, best looking crops of osr round here are all after fallow aka failed / tragic osr crops.

My best wheat is after fallow , everything else looks pretty middling

SilliamWhale · Mar 12, 2021

Two Tone said:
Slot closure was good, but it wasn’t going to stop 5”of rain in 2 day getting that Crystal and DFF into those slots !
The pre em went on 5 days before that storm. It definitely re mobilised. You could clearly see the yellow Crystal washed off the previous Spring oats stubble.

I’ve just got to put it down to experience and sheer bad luck. I’m not put off the idea of the GD at all.

Those 3 field we a failed crop of OSR, that I did the Spring Oats No-til trials in last year. They had a large dose of Muck on before they were ploughed prior to drilling the OSR. I’m fairly certain that land slumped, only to have almost self repaired in the drought of last summer.
But I’m seriously considering ploughing it again ahead of next year’s W Barley crop, as a reset/re-boot. Hopefully, they will be the only fields I will plough and conventionally drill this Autumn.

I’ve often found that a new crop following a bad crop, will yield as a bumper crop, to make up for the bad one. However, I want to give it every chance to be able to do so!

IMO, subsoiling ahead of the GD will endanger the my BG situation again. So the only alternative is to plough it properly, in good conditions and bury the bloody stuff while breaking that slump up.

Don’t forget, where I have used the GD on the rest of the farm, I couldn’t hardly be more pleased with!
I like early drilling and it is suited to it. So many times I have looked at the stubbles I have been ploughing and thought it rather silly to bury what looks like rather a good seedbed, if only I had the right drill to use at that time. Hence the GD!

But, IMO I can’t stress enough that I need a drill that causes the absolute minimum soil disturbance so as NOT to wake up the BG, to be able to drill that early. So far, that side of it seems to work well too. Overall, my BG situation hasn’t suffered compared to what I have previously found to be the best solution to it, being proper, good ploughing to bury it.

I think your next stage is moling and then on the heavy ground get a good break in and then try wheat again

Renaultman · Mar 12, 2021

teslacoils said:
Yes, best looking crops of osr round here are all after fallow aka failed / tragic osr crops.

I never quite understand why people redrill OSR after a failure, surely the break is now over and back in to wheat? Saying that, the way OSR prices are going what do I know?

Old apprentice · Mar 12, 2021

Could I ask a question of you more experienced guys than me. When heavy land is slumped why plough does continuous ploughing create that slump, a thaught I would consider subsoil with a low disturbance tine about 50 cm apart leave and spray bg then direct drill? I had a demo of GD drill the seed not all went mouldy in trench ,we did not roll they did not suggesting rolling should I have rolled ?

Two Tone · Mar 12, 2021

Old apprentice said:
Could I ask a question of you more experienced guys than me. When heavy land is slumped why plough does continuous ploughing create that slump, a thaught I would consider subsoil with a low disturbance tine about 50 cm apart leave and spray bg then direct drill? I had a demo of GD drill the seed not all went mouldy in trench ,we did not roll they did not suggesting rolling should I have rolled ?

Everybody’s farms are different and I think we individually get to know them and have gut feelings as to what works best for each of us.
As for more experienced, the problem is what works for some might not work for others.
There is no “more experienced” when you are talking about somebody else’s farm!

I think we mustn’t forget the problems that both of the last two Autumns have caused many of us.
I think that we shouldn’t be afraid of trying new techniques.
But I also think that we shouldn’t become too religious about any technique to the exclusion of all others.
Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a better result, isn’t likely to happen.

With regards land slumping, IMO the weather and timing has a huge influence on this. Plough mud down and you will plough it back up again. So what do you do heading into Autumn when you know full well that the soil is highly unlikely to improve? Do you crack on knowing it will probably get worse? Or wait? Or simply not bother planting a crop?
These are all decisions we all individually have to make and we each do so to the best of our abilities and gut feeling. Often with a clenched arse hoping that we each made the right choice!

E_B · Mar 12, 2021

If your over wintered ploughed ground slumps, just plough it again in the Spring...

Two Tone · Mar 12, 2021

SilliamWhale said:
I think your next stage is moling and then on the heavy ground get a good break in and then try wheat again

Unfortunately, no adequate drains to mole into. It had a break last year with the failed OSR/ Spring Oats.
Destined for Winter Barley next season and this is a crop that I think it is too risky on Heavy land to Direct Drill, unless condition are absolutely ideal at Drilling and remain so until the crop is well established.
That is why I’ll probably plough and Combi drill it this Autumn.
Another reason for wanting to do this is that Hybrid Winter Barley is one hell of a good Blackgrass suppressant, providing the crop establishes well. So I won’t risk changing a system that I know will work well in this instance on those fields, on this farm here.

But @SilliamWhale , you (especially!) will be glad to hear, that the following Linseed crop will almost certainly be GD drilled.

IMO, switching to Direct Drilling is fine as long as the fields you want to do so on, start off in the right condition. This is the problem on those fields. Once I’ve got them right and they have yielded a good crop again, they will hopefully be in good enough condition to switch more permanently into Direct drilling.... until we get the next batch of wet Autumns, perhaps!

Farmer Roy · Mar 13, 2021

Wet sheep
Grabbed a 6 pack for a paddock inspection today after being on toilets / park run this morning from 3.30 - 8.30am, then an hour of yoga.
No rain at home or in town last night, but obviously a bit wet out here, 20 km away
Mungs are powering away, but we will be harvesting sorghum once we can get it to dry down.
But it’s the mungs that potentially are the big $$$$$

We don’t even think about driving on this, unless we absolutely HAVE to. Sticky black clay, I’ve had all four wheels / wheel arches jammed with mud, right back to the chassis, in low range ( because of the drag from the tyres against the mud jammed around chassis & wheel arches ), smoke / steam coming off the tyres & the clutch smelling bad, after driving only a few hundred metres through similar in the past

ajd132 · Mar 13, 2021

Two Tone said:
Very happy with the comparison of W Barley on light land. On the Medium to Heavy land the GD’d W Barley does not quite so good as the conventional, but it’s OK.

With the Wheat, both Light and Medium GD’d stuff is very good. But on the Heavy stuff drilled end Sept, 5 days before Storm Alex in Early October, the Jury is still out as to how much of it we will have to replant with Spring Wheat. Probably about 20%.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. I wish I had drilled that heavy land wheat 2 weeks earlier (Mid Sept) before I drilled anything else and it would have been fine.

On that heavy land, where BASF did a trial with Crystal and had a strip where no Chem was applied at all, the wheat looks fantastic.......Unfortunately so does the Blackgrass in it!
The rest of those fields are very clean from Blackgrass, as is the Light and medium land Of Both Wheat and Barley.
I’ll definitely be altering my Pre-em stack of 4 litres Crystal plus 0.2 DFF, followed by Avadex on all the GD’d stuff next year! That storm washed it all down the GD’s slot and hammered the wheat!

Bearing in mind I specifically chose the GD because of minimal disturbance so as not to disturb the BG seed, I think I can hold off certainly the Crystal+DFF until post emergence on the GD’d land.

The Linseed, all GD drilled all looks great.

If I do patch any of the Heavy land Wheat in with Spring Wheat, this will be my only Spring drilling this season on this farm.

I have a dream of weed control coming from drilling into a massive catch crop, which then creates a mulch to stop weeds germinating, followed by an inter row hoe in the spring to clear things up and then a quick hand rogue. The only herbicide 2-3l glyphosate to kill catch crop (which will have been rolled anyway).
I think there is a correlation between these massive residual herbicide stacks and making the plants more susceptible to BYDV infection.
FYI once the rain started we dropped the Crystal and dff and didn’t have any issues, I had the same issues the year before with Crystal going into a slot.

Renaultman · Mar 13, 2021

Two Tone said:
Everybody’s farms are different and I think we individually get to know them and have gut feelings as to what works best for each of us.
As for more experienced, the problem is what works for some might not work for others.
There is no “more experienced” when you are talking about somebody else’s farm!

I think we mustn’t forget the problems that both of the last two Autumns have caused many of us.
I think that we shouldn’t be afraid of trying new techniques.
But I also think that we shouldn’t become too religious about any technique to the exclusion of all others.
Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a better result, isn’t likely to happen.

With regards land slumping, IMO the weather and timing has a huge influence on this. Plough mud down and you will plough it back up again. So what do you do heading into Autumn when you know full well that the soil is highly unlikely to improve? Do you crack on knowing it will probably get worse? Or wait? Or simply not bother planting a crop?
These are all decisions we all individually have to make and we each do so to the best of our abilities and gut feeling. Often with a clenched arse hoping that we each made the right choice!

Great post, totally agree with every word. On my land I'm finding less is best. Over cultivated, not that it seemed it at the time, isn't performing as well as the fields that I drilled, thinking, 'this really could have done with another pass.

Lincsman · Mar 13, 2021

Renaultman said:
Great post, totally agree with every word. On my land I'm finding less is best. Over cultivated, not that it seemed it at the time, isn't performing as well as the fields that I drilled, thinking, 'this really could have done with another pass.

When I was young a clod the size of a football wasnt an issue, I was sent to roll and harrow wheat in the spring, but crops tillered well in those days and no Pre ems.

Renaultman · Mar 13, 2021

Lincsman said:
When I was young a clod the size of a football wasnt an issue, I was sent to roll and harrow wheat in the spring, but crops tillered well in those days and no Pre ems.

When I was at college we were taught fist sized clods, as you say, before pre em, and as slugs? Can't remember them being that much of an issue.

Brisel · Mar 13, 2021

Renaultman said:
When I was at college we were taught fist sized clods, as you say, before pre em, and as slugs? Can't remember them being that much of an issue.

When were you at college? Clods that size were what gave us slugs & blackgrass! Fair enough for avoiding excessive cultivations that make the soil slump though.

bankrupt · Mar 13, 2021

Brisel said:
Clods that size were what gave us slugs

Plenty of clods here in the 60s and 70s, but no slugs . . . . then along came WOSR.

State of your crops?

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

0 %

Up to 25%

25-50%

50-75%

75-100%

100% I’ve had enough of farming!

Share this page