State of your crops -2022

ajd132

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Suffolk
If you can control the blackgrass to such a level that you can still achieve 10t that's what I would be doing, particularly with wheat at current prices.
I expect this will do 8.5-9.5 as it’s second wheat. Still good profit. This wheat is also being grown with very cheap fertiliser.
next year will go into spring barley, then either winter beans or spring oats i would imagine.
 

Renaultman

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Darlington
I expect this will do 8.5-9.5 as it’s second wheat. Still good profit. This wheat is also being grown with very cheap fertiliser.
next year will go into spring barley, then either winter beans or spring oats i would imagine.
Sounds like a good compromise to me. When you drill winter beans, do you leave it as late as possible and delay Kerb as late as you dare. First year growing winters this year and think I was a bit early getting them in and getting the Kerb on. Ryegrass is my nemesis not blackgrass.
 

ajd132

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Suffolk
Sounds like a good compromise to me. When you drill winter beans, do you leave it as late as possible and delay Kerb as late as you dare. First year growing winters this year and think I was a bit early getting them in and getting the Kerb on. Ryegrass is my nemesis not blackgrass.
No, we drill them early and as deep as possible then put the kerb/glyphosate on just before emergence. Drill end of September beginning of October.
We have maxed out on wheat this year in places we probably shouldn’t have done for blackgrass, but I guess with the high prices and the fact we are following all this wheat with spring barley means we will be in a good position for cashflow etc next ear as much cheaper crops to grow. This is more by luck than judgement!
 

teslacoils

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
I expect this will do 8.5-9.5 as it’s second wheat. Still good profit. This wheat is also being grown with very cheap fertiliser.
next year will go into spring barley, then either winter beans or spring oats i would imagine.
In that case it looks fine. I can't really tell potential from looking at these wheat crops on wider rows. To me, it only has to look good once and that's when the cheque comes.
 

benny6910

Member
Arable Farmer
View attachment 1036175
Blackgrassy second wheat. Whatever we do these fields always have a certain level on.
someone the other day told me, after I was getting wound up abit that I needed to forget my ego/pride and just make sure we keep it at economic levels.
should really have gone into a spring crop. This field always yields well and I’ve seen it do 10t/ha with much worse BG than this.
The last few years history on these fields was 10t/ha really blackgrassy wheat, 8t/ha spring barley, 3t/ha osr, 10t/ha slightly blackgrassy wheat and now this current crop of second wheat. It had been continuous wheat for 30 odd years before that which is to blame for having a big BG seed bank. Any thoughts?
Do you not find that with the wide spaced rows you get daylight onto the soil for longer and this if there’s enough moisture will cause more blackgrass to germinate in the spring? I’m just interested really as I’m tempted to go strip till but the wide space rows put me off a little.
 

ajd132

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Suffolk
Do you not find that with the wide spaced rows you get daylight onto the soil for longer and this if there’s enough moisture will cause more blackgrass to germinate in the spring? I’m just interested really as I’m tempted to go strip till but the wide space rows put me off a little.
It’s abit of a catch 22. Yes there is more light and it does grow In the rows. But also your not disturbing inbetween those rows.
If we had run a carrier type thing over these fields, then drilled early on wide rows we would be absolutely f**ked. We found min till and late drilling a very good way to control blackgrass, IF the autumn was really kind. You have disturbed all that soil so have to wait for it flush, and then it can be so late you drill into absolute slop and the crops are rubbish.
It’s not easy and no right answer. I’ve resigned myself to the fact we just have to live with it and keep it at sensible levels. I don’t see how zero tolerance, spraying loads of crop off, rouging anything more than the very lowest levels can ever pay off if you are coming from a bad situation. If your in an area it’s just creeping into then I would be an advocate for that.
 

Renaultman

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Darlington
Grafton after beans. Doing what Grafton does
IMG_20220515_092803191.jpg
 

robbie

Member
BASIS
View attachment 1036175
Blackgrassy second wheat. Whatever we do these fields always have a certain level on.
someone the other day told me, after I was getting wound up abit that I needed to forget my ego/pride and just make sure we keep it at economic levels.
should really have gone into a spring crop. This field always yields well and I’ve seen it do 10t/ha with much worse BG than this.
The last few years history on these fields was 10t/ha really blackgrassy wheat, 8t/ha spring barley, 3t/ha osr, 10t/ha slightly blackgrassy wheat and now this current crop of second wheat. It had been continuous wheat for 30 odd years before that which is to blame for having a big BG seed bank. Any thoughts?
These strip till crops always fascinate me. From the picture it looks poor and 5t/ha would be a good yield, I know if that was mine I'd be crying my eyes out but somehow they do seem to yield.
I assume you have exactly the same seeds m² as convention, it looks like there's only a crop on half of the ground.
 

ajd132

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Suffolk
These strip till crops always fascinate me. From the picture it looks poor and 5t/ha would be a good yield, I know if that was mine I'd be crying my eyes out but somehow they do seem to yield.
I assume you have exactly the same seeds m² as convention, it looks like there's only a crop on half of the ground.
Not strip till just a wide spacing. Yes it does take some getting used to. Bushel weights seem to be higher, perhaps better light interception and more airflow within crops with keep disease less.
I now look at thick close spaced wheat crops as a mass of disease and leaves rubbing on each other. High biomass crops with low bushel weights (massive generalisation!)
 

teslacoils

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
Just seems a tad counter intuitive to increase row width and put the same number if seeds in. If you're getting good emergence with soil moisture etc, and not the bg flushes from moving less soul, and drilling pretty early then I'd be thinking of cutting seed rates. Ah the days of drilling 90kg/ha of Claire in the first couple of days in September.
 

ajd132

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Suffolk
Just seems a tad counter intuitive to increase row width and put the same number if seeds in. If you're getting good emergence with soil moisture etc, and not the bg flushes from moving less soul, and drilling pretty early then I'd be thinking of cutting seed rates. Ah the days of drilling 90kg/ha of Claire in the first couple of days in September.
Agree. Need to try some different rates
 

4course

Member
Location
north yorks
Any more comments on dawsum

These strip till crops always fascinate me. From the picture it looks poor and 5t/ha would be a good yield, I know if that was mine I'd be crying my eyes out but somehow they do seem to yield.
I assume you have exactly the same seeds m² as convention, it looks like there's only a crop on half of the ground.
in my youth the exponents of higher yield were a belgian( i think ) professor called laloux who was all for low seed rates i.e more space between plants and a farming method based on schleswig holstein (german practices) which had high seed rates and ive tried both over the years and now ive settled or thought I had on what grandad did as that seems more reliable, though we are or rather the younger generation are dragging me on to trying this scratch it malarkey, time will tell
 

robbie

Member
BASIS
in my youth the exponents of higher yield were a belgian( i think ) professor called laloux who was all for low seed rates i.e more space between plants and a farming method based on schleswig holstein (german practices) which had high seed rates and ive tried both over the years and now ive settled or thought I had on what grandad did as that seems more reliable, though we are or rather the younger generation are dragging me on to trying this scratch it malarkey, time will tell
Basically, 12 stone an acre works!!!
I've read various papers over the years which advocate high or low seed rate and everyone seems to contradict the other.
 

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