Black grass 2021

teslacoils · May 12, 2021

Have a pure ryegrass or Timothy margin 2m wider than your X compliance / stewardship margins and scalp that - none of grandad cutting the corn all the way to the hedge along with goodness knows what else.

Under no circumstances allow a contractor baler on your farm unless you've personally cleaned it. Just dont. Buy your own if you must.

The sooner you can eliminate any potential targets to blame that belong to a third party then the sooner you take control and get the knapsack out / roguing gang in.

Straw for muck? Muck from horses? Forget about it.

Flufenacet is your friend. Use it. Use it again. Use different products to get around the "0.6 liberator is enough". Stacks of different chem? Forget it. You'll be surprised how much ffu your wheat will take. And how little shed space it takes compared to all that pdm.

If you put grass leys in, don't presume whoever buys it will go a perfect job. You need to be out with the topper on those bits where they've gone a bit wide, or the wheeling where it's been opened out and tramped down a bit.

My attitude to BG got much more serious when I realised it was *entirely my fault*.

Badshot · May 12, 2021

I bitterly regret not spraying out the spring wheat on 50 acres.
That was 2016.
It has since been DD winter beans
DD linseed
DD osr
DD winter wheat/ Jan Feb drilled.
Now going linseed again.
It's also had cover crops grazed by sheep the last couple of years. DD established.

I'm getting there.
But by God it would have been better to take the hit in that bloody spring wheat.

yellow belly · May 12, 2021

if it has only a small amount of bg and has never been ploughed down before
leave the bg on the top very lightly cultivate

spray off next spring drill spring barley in april with avadex
if there is bg in the spring barley do the same the following year

if you plough it the bg will be spread through out the soil profile and keep apearing for ever just enough to keep it a problem

since moving to notill stopping ploughing min tilling growing spring crops and using avadex widely the bg levels are now as low as they were in the 1980s
and wild oats are well covered

with the wetter summers we have now bg survives in the base of osr crops seeding

warksfarmer · May 12, 2021

Dog said:
Up until now we have not had a problem with black grass. But one field seems to have got away on us. It’s first wheat after osr and would expect it yield about 10t/ha. There is not enough grass to effect the yield but too much to pull by hand. The area is about 12ac which would be about 4% of our total wheat area. The field has not been ploughed for 3 years.
what would people do who have had previous experience of this. My options are
a) harvest the crop, clean down machinery, plough ASAP and drill wheat as late as possible or spring barley
b) glyphosate, get as many chits as possible and drill wheat as late as possible or spring barley
c) might be an option to whole crop it but black grass has headed and would need cutting in a week or two so there won’t be much of a whole crop yield.

Silage the field in June before the bg drops it’s seeds. Every single plant can drop 2000 seeds so next year the problem will be much worse. Once silaged, glyphosate it and then don’t touch it and plant with a spring barley in 2022. Glyphosate it over the winter as required.

Two Tone · May 12, 2021

Brisel said:
Fair comment. It is a big hit to take at once.

What do you think about the longer term cost if there is a lot of seed return?

That is a very interesting question:

On the farm that I manage, the owner would have an absolute fit if he saw that I had Roundup'ed off a growing crop. Especially at today's grain prices.

I've mentioned before that this farm in most years, does not particularly lend itself to growing Spring Crops.
Also that it was the use of Min-till that wrecked this farm by causing an explosion in Blackgrass and it took a return to well set up ploughing to get it back under control.
Blackgrass was so bad, that on 3 fields in 2013, the wheat yielded less than 1 tonne/ha (not acre!), despite chucking everything including the kitchen sink at it!

I managed to get BG back under control, but without EVER having to destroy a crop. Hybrid Winter Barley in the rotation as well as the plough helped me do this.

So much so, that we are now converting Zero-till and have seen no increase in Blackgrass so far.
I just hope we aren't seeing beginner's luck!
I am reasonably confident so far that it does work over a lot of the farm. And that hopefully, the rest of the farm will follow shortly.

Strangely enough, I've been doing our Management Accounts this week, comparing this year's (3/4 Zero-till) to the previous year (all ploughing).
I cannot believe the enormous savings in fuel and steel it shows! No extra variable cost requirements either.
I am seriously thinking about buying my own hedge-cutter to give me something to do instead of the hours I spent ploughing!

Brisel · May 12, 2021

Two Tone said:
That is a very interesting question:

On the farm that I manage, the owner would have an absolute fit if he saw that I had Roundup'ed off a growing crop. Especially at today's grain prices.

I've mentioned before that this farm in most years, does not particularly lend itself to growing Spring Crops.
Also that it was the use of Min-till that wrecked this farm by causing an explosion in Blackgrass and it took a return to well set up ploughing to get it back under control.
Blackgrass was so bad, that on 3 fields in 2013, the wheat yielded less than 1 tonne/ha (not acre!), despite chucking everything including the kitchen sink at it!

I managed to get BG back under control, but without EVER having to destroy a crop. Hybrid Winter Barley in the rotation as well as the plough helped me do this.

So much so, that we are now converting Zero-till and have seen no increase in Blackgrass so far.
I just hope we aren't seeing beginner's luck!
I am reasonably confident so far that it does work over a lot of the farm. And that hopefully, the rest of the farm will follow shortly.

Strangely enough, I've been doing our Management Accounts this week, comparing this year's (3/4 Zero-till) to the previous year (all ploughing).
I cannot believe the enormous savings in fuel and steel it shows! No extra variable cost requirements either.
I am seriously thinking about buying my own hedge-cutter to give me something to do instead of the hours I spent ploughing!

Thank you for answering my question. Would you use a different strategy if you took on a bit of land with a more open minded owner?

Two Tone · May 12, 2021

Brisel said:
Thank you for answering my question. Would you use a different strategy if you took on a bit of land with a more open minded owner?

Probably not. I'd be very hard pushed to want to do anything different on my own land, let alone anybody else's.
You've just got to find a way of doing it that is the least most financially damaging that is possible.
I do not believe that the "First loss is your best loss" is right in this situation here.

snarling bee · May 12, 2021

If the rest of the farm is BG free I would spray off the whole field without hesitation. If you don't you will regret it.
If you can't do that, combine it last, and budget for 2 or 3 late drilled spring barleys with 2" min till on that field. Don't plough it down, keep the seed on the top.
Don't mess with BG or it will mess with you.

BenAdamsAgri · May 12, 2021

Rouge it or spot spray it.
It is cheaper and more effective than a post em or a plough and damn sight cheaper than having blackgrass in the seed bank for years to come

Timbo1080 · May 12, 2021

If the rest of the farm is genuinely Blackgrass free, Arable silage it....Don't wait to wholecrop it. Then do absolutely nothing to the soil (Bar Glyphosate post-silage & more if there is further Blackgrass coming). Get any moling/soil amendments done in the meantime & get someone in with a zero/ULD drill and have another stab at wheat, after the first week of October, and use a healthy Pre-Em stack...And while the field is staring at you, bare all summer, find out where it came from......Of course, this is all dependant on having the rest of the farm Blackgrass free......But for an infestation such that "there is not enough grass to effect the yield but too much to pull by hand", i suspect that this is not the case.
Lots of options above, for you to choose a course of action.

JCfarmer · May 12, 2021

Can you not spray out worst patches or is at the same level all over?
I would combine it last if possible then scratch the top with light disc, spray off and drill straight in with a 2nd wheat mid October.
Use wheat seed off the heap mind and then spray off the lot, timing could be Dec or Feb before planting spring barley late march with cheap hs seed at 500 seeds.

ajd132 · May 13, 2021

Two Tone said:
That is a very interesting question:

On the farm that I manage, the owner would have an absolute fit if he saw that I had Roundup'ed off a growing crop. Especially at today's grain prices.

I've mentioned before that this farm in most years, does not particularly lend itself to growing Spring Crops.
Also that it was the use of Min-till that wrecked this farm by causing an explosion in Blackgrass and it took a return to well set up ploughing to get it back under control.
Blackgrass was so bad, that on 3 fields in 2013, the wheat yielded less than 1 tonne/ha (not acre!), despite chucking everything including the kitchen sink at it!

I managed to get BG back under control, but without EVER having to destroy a crop. Hybrid Winter Barley in the rotation as well as the plough helped me do this.

So much so, that we are now converting Zero-till and have seen no increase in Blackgrass so far.
I just hope we aren't seeing beginner's luck!
I am reasonably confident so far that it does work over a lot of the farm. And that hopefully, the rest of the farm will follow shortly.

Strangely enough, I've been doing our Management Accounts this week, comparing this year's (3/4 Zero-till) to the previous year (all ploughing).
I cannot believe the enormous savings in fuel and steel it shows! No extra variable cost requirements either.
I am seriously thinking about buying my own hedge-cutter to give me something to do instead of the hours I spent ploughing!

I would say that being committed to zero till saves £100-£200/ha on operating over heads depending on the farm compared to gearing up for a no till/plough system. Not massive when wheat is £200/t but when I goes back down to £130 that can make a big difference. Cannot lose yield though. What it does do is mitigate risk/capital exposure against actors out of our control, like last years weather when everything around here was rubbish regardless of system.
On BG no till definitely helps but isn’t a silver bullet. It has allowed us to start drilling earlier again (we still have some BG in crops but not a great deal) which is going to be worth several hundreds of thousands this year. If I had min tilled and drilled early this year we would have terrible BG levels I’m sure, in fact I have a 6ha of early drilled min till and I had to use a Claydon hoe through it 3 times to try and get the levels down.
although saying all this there is an annoyingly bad patch of BG right outside my house!

Humble Village Farmer · May 13, 2021

Badshot said:
I bitterly regret not spraying out the spring wheat on 50 acres.
That was 2016.
It has since been DD winter beans
DD linseed
DD osr
DD winter wheat/ Jan Feb drilled.
Now going linseed again.
It's also had cover crops grazed by sheep the last couple of years. DD established.

I'm getting there.
But by God it would have been better to take the hit in that bloody spring wheat.

How come no spring cereals to smother it?

Badshot · May 13, 2021

Humble Village Farmer said:
How come no spring cereals to smother it?

Because they're what got me into the mess in the first place.
Rest of the farm I'm well on top of it, but leaving that spring wheat crop has given me a massive headache, and cost me several first wheat opportunities.

Two Tone · May 13, 2021

The war against Blackgrass is one that we probably will never win. But one which we will win a lot of battles against. There is such a seed bank of it, that there will always be some seed that is left, that if let slip by will come back to haunt us.

We have to wake up every day and ask ourselves what we can reasonably do to fight it today. If there is something, do it. I’ve got mine under control enough now, to be manageable. I didn’t rouge it and I didn’t destroy a crop in doing so.
Now that I have done so, I’m now attempting to move to Zero-till.

Why now?
Even though ELMs will pay us to reduce tillage (and min-till is an absolute disaster BG wise here because it mixes seed throughout the soil profile), ELMS won’t start for three more years. However before that happens, our BPS will reduce.
Zero-Till cost savings are a good route to make up for that BPS reduction.

Humble Village Farmer · May 13, 2021

Badshot said:
Because they're what got me into the mess in the first place.
Rest of the farm I'm well on top of it, but leaving that spring wheat crop has given me a massive headache, and cost me several first wheat opportunities.

Sorry, I saw that and have had similar experiences. S oats and barley are very different though in my experience, ie very competitive.

For what it's worth, I would spray out the worst bits. That's an easy decision if there's hardly any wheat in.

N.Yorks. · May 13, 2021

Dog said:
Up until now we have not had a problem with black grass. But one field seems to have got away on us. It’s first wheat after osr and would expect it yield about 10t/ha. There is not enough grass to effect the yield but too much to pull by hand. The area is about 12ac which would be about 4% of our total wheat area. The field has not been ploughed for 3 years.
what would people do who have had previous experience of this. My options are
a) harvest the crop, clean down machinery, plough ASAP and drill wheat as late as possible or spring barley
b) glyphosate, get as many chits as possible and drill wheat as late as possible or spring barley
c) might be an option to whole crop it but black grass has headed and would need cutting in a week or two so there won’t be much of a whole crop yield.

I'm guessing you don't have livestock so a 3 or 4 year grass ley isn't an option?

yellow belly · May 13, 2021

A knapsack sack and chemical roguing is very effective if there are a few plants dotted about
More effective than hand roguing and 10 times quicker
Use a low drift nozzle not the usual wide angled flood jet

Badshot · May 13, 2021

yellow belly said:
A knapsack sack and chemical roguing is very effective if there are a few plants dotted about
More effective than hand roguing and 10 times quicker
Use a low drift nozzle not the usual wide angled flood jet

I use a pump up sprayer with adjustable spray nozzle, can get it very coarse and targeted.

JCfarmer · May 13, 2021

Two Tone said:
The war against Blackgrass is one that we probably will never win. But one which we will win a lot of battles against. There is such a seed bank of it, that there will always be some seed that is left, that if let slip by will come back to haunt us.

We have to wake up every day and ask ourselves what we can reasonably do to fight it today. If there is something, do it. I’ve got mine under control enough now, to be manageable. I didn’t rouge it and I didn’t destroy a crop in doing so.
Now that I have done so, I’m now attempting to move to Zero-till.

Why now?
Even though ELMs will pay us to reduce tillage (and min-till is an absolute disaster BG wise here because it mixes seed throughout the soil profile), ELMS won’t start for three more years. However before that happens, our BPS will reduce.
Zero-Till cost savings are a good route to make up for that BPS reduction.

Lower yields will more than counter act the saving with zero till.

Black grass 2021

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