Back to minimum tillage ?

teslacoils

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
What’s your thoughts on the PGR? Sounds interesting.
I'm pretty sure the system for bg control here will be based on some kind of weed wiper system.

We have routinely applied 0.1 moddus and a litre of CCC at T0 and T1. But the bg "gets going" earlier than the wheat, and the wheat is poor at competing compared to oats or barley. The fields that are certainly shorter have mych more of the annoying, single tiller stuff in them.

It's just more of the idea that everything we do to wheat just favours the bg. I'm moving more towards gentle touch pgr based on making the plant stiffer rather than necessarily shorter. And any shortening is more remedial with cerone etc.

Next year's trials are all going to be on plant manipulation. But I reckon we would have almost a three week window for weed wiping bg here, and a system almost like a gantry would do a tidy job.

I mean, I'd love to put a little starter fert in with a late sown wheat......

The interow hoe sounds interesting but I'm really, really not sold on wider rows that I'd need to go with it. It all seems so counter intuitive to put the same number of seeds into half the number of rows. I suppose the holy grail would be small, solar powered robots that could be released into the field and detect and remove bg seedlings in early spring.
 

ajd132

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Suffolk
I'm pretty sure the system for bg control here will be based on some kind of weed wiper system.

We have routinely applied 0.1 moddus and a litre of CCC at T0 and T1. But the bg "gets going" earlier than the wheat, and the wheat is poor at competing compared to oats or barley. The fields that are certainly shorter have mych more of the annoying, single tiller stuff in them.

It's just more of the idea that everything we do to wheat just favours the bg. I'm moving more towards gentle touch pgr based on making the plant stiffer rather than necessarily shorter. And any shortening is more remedial with cerone etc.

Next year's trials are all going to be on plant manipulation. But I reckon we would have almost a three week window for weed wiping bg here, and a system almost like a gantry would do a tidy job.

I mean, I'd love to put a little starter fert in with a late sown wheat......

The interow hoe sounds interesting but I'm really, really not sold on wider rows that I'd need to go with it. It all seems so counter intuitive to put the same number of seeds into half the number of rows. I suppose the holy grail would be small, solar powered robots that could be released into the field and detect and remove bg seedlings in early spring.
Anecdotally we have found better bushel weights and lower disease levels from wider rows. But I get the concerns around it. We are happy with the wider row.
Weed wiping is a good idea, although this year the blackgrass is quite short here and it’s only above the crop on bad patches.
I was looking into a machine called a ‘top cut collect’ made by a company called zurn. I think it could also work really well in ab15 type situations. Very expensive though.
 

Humble Village Farmer

Member
BASE UK Member
Location
Essex
Think the pgr and BG competition is worth looking at.

Also have noticed also anecdotally, that the blanket effect of Skyfall helps keep the light off the blackgrass, possibly reducing the size of the heads.
 

ajd132

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Suffolk
Think the pgr and BG competition is worth looking at.

Also have noticed also anecdotally, that the blanket effect of Skyfall helps keep the light off the blackgrass, possibly reducing the size of the heads.
Winter barley, spring barley and spring oats all compete really well against it, so does osr aslong as you have a decent crop. Winter beans are okay again if you have a decent crop.
Unless you have created an absolute disaster of a situation none of these crops will take a yield hit from BG, even wheat it takes a reasonable amount to do anything to the yield.
agree re skyfall it does seem to have a shading effect although we haven’t grow it for a very long time
 

teslacoils

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
Anecdotally we have found better bushel weights and lower disease levels from wider rows. But I get the concerns around it. We are happy with the wider row.
Weed wiping is a good idea, although this year the blackgrass is quite short here and it’s only above the crop on bad patches.
I was looking into a machine called a ‘top cut collect’ made by a company called zurn. I think it could also work really well in ab15 type situations. Very expensive though.

I was looking at a wiper that fit in sections into the standard sprayer nozzle sections. I was going to buy a set of old booms, and essentially make them into a 24m run with a set of wheels at each end to run down pairs of tramlines. With a hydraulic lift that was operated by actual people. Would be slow but good kill potential.
 

Banana Bar

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Bury St Edmunds
Anecdotally we have found better bushel weights and lower disease levels from wider rows. But I get the concerns around it. We are happy with the wider row.
Weed wiping is a good idea, although this year the blackgrass is quite short here and it’s only above the crop on bad patches.
I was looking into a machine called a ‘top cut collect’ made by a company called zurn. I think it could also work really well in ab15 type situations. Very expensive though.
I like the look of the Zurn machine too, however, it concerns me that you will very quickly select for low growing blackgrass that cannot be topped. I guess a hoe and Zurn could be the answer. Did you go to see it at Charlie’s last week?
 

ajd132

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Suffolk
I like the look of the Zurn machine too, however, it concerns me that you will very quickly select for low growing blackgrass that cannot be topped. I guess a hoe and Zurn could be the answer. Did you go to see it at Charlie’s last week?
Unfortunately not but Carl did send me some more info about it. You would select for lower blackgrass but then that might be less agressive strains anyway?
It’s the sort of thing a few of us could share if we decided it was worthwhile enough.
 

snarling bee

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Bedfordshire
I have booked a contractor with a Zurn top cutter, but I will probably cancel as the BG is not tall enough compared to the crop this year. It is not cheap, and there will be losses in extra wheeling damage and some ears.
Nice idea but probably not for every year and probably more for organics etc.

Interesting comments re Proclus v Avadex. Also Luximo hopefully on the scene this autumn, at a price no doubt.
 

farmerm

Member
Location
Shropshire
The only way to beat BG, is to be anal about it.
It's not possible to beat it if you allow seed return at any point.
It's the odds n sods that survive the chemical that absolutely must be removed, otherwise they then seed and in not many years you've got a mess of resistance.
I try to walk every tramline during June applying a zero tolerance for BG. 10 years ago I would find 1 per 50ac I now find 1 per ac. The increase is not in patches, its single plants widely dispersed, its arriving by contractor combine, bailer or birds, sometimes in the seed. The effort is buying time but if everyone else doesnt get on top of their BG problems I will be fighting a loosing battle.
 

farmerm

Member
Location
Shropshire
I have booked a contractor with a Zurn top cutter, but I will probably cancel as the BG is not tall enough compared to the crop this year. It is not cheap, and there will be losses in extra wheeling damage and some ears.
Nice idea but probably not for every year and probably more for organics etc.

Interesting comments re Proclus v Avadex. Also Luximo hopefully on the scene this autumn, at a price no doubt.
which within a season or two will probably result in your BG population being equally thick, just shorter.....
 

snarling bee

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Bedfordshire
I like the look of the Zurn machine too, however, it concerns me that you will very quickly select for low growing blackgrass that cannot be topped. I guess a hoe and Zurn could be the answer. Did you go to see it at Charlie’s last week?
I suggested 10/15 years ago that we could select for spring germinating BG with a long run of spring crops and for late germinating BG with continuous late autumn drilling. The idea was dismissed at the time as 'what do I know'. I have been proved correct for the former and will probably be on the latter.
By ploughing down BG seeds are we selecting for those that can survive underground longest when we next rotationally plough them back up?
As with most diseases, pests and weeds we need to have a multitude of control methods.
 
Last edited:
Well of course.

If you have blackgrass or any difficult grass weed. It needs a 5 year ley grazed years 1, 3 and 5, 2 & 4 cattle or hay.

Done just that. Back into winter wheat via no till. The crop looks simply stunning and one of the best we’ve ever grown BUT it’s got both blackgrass and ryegrass in it. To much to hand rogue.
 
DD spring crops definitely doesn't work for me.

History of the field below - mucho BG when I took it over in 16, grassed down after tickling top and glypho.

3 years mowed ley, no seeding at all. Perfect kill after, no BG at all.

2 years spring barley min till (top 2 inches to bury clean fym) with winter cover (unsuccessful mainly) no BG.

Min till last autumn to make enough soil to bury more fym, glypho, drill WW, pre ems and avadex and post ems.

View attachment 1040094

return to plough this year I think, then SB and then back to grass.

Verdict; WW encourages BG.

Agreed but DD spring barley isn’t ideal. Where germination isn’t 100% we had BG take over those areas. The barley germination wasn’t good because of the lack of tilth which was because we didn’t move the soil.

We didn’t move the soil on purpose because we didn’t want to germinate the grass seed weed bank.

It’s a vicious circle.

We are pretty much now resistant to 90% of ryegrass herbicides.
 

Banana Bar

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Bury St Edmunds
Unfortunately not but Carl did send me some more info about it. You would select for lower blackgrass but then that might be less agressive strains anyway?
It’s the sort of thing a few of us could share if we decided it was worthwhile enough.
I had wondered that although I suspect the window to use it would be a very few days?
 

Banana Bar

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Bury St Edmunds
I try to walk every tramline during June applying a zero tolerance for BG. 10 years ago I would find 1 per 50ac I now find 1 per ac. The increase is not in patches, its single plants widely dispersed, its arriving by contractor combine, bailer or birds, sometimes in the seed. The effort is buying time but if everyone else doesnt get on top of their BG problems I will be fighting a loosing battle.
How I’d like that level of blackgrass! Well done on your commitment to beating it.

BB
 

Oscar

Member
Livestock Farmer
Not looked at this thread until just now , one question , what's this " blackgrass " you mention !!?.
Growing my last cereal crops this year , 40 yrs , never had blackgrass on the farm .
Well that's a lie in that a " away" contractor came unexpected to bale straw ( about 8 years ago)and the first two bales( in chamber from an unknown farm) came out so tight that they exploded and he rebaled . I did see unusual plants growing in those two areas and sprayed it off in the following March with round up.
In reality , I know it's a huge problem and I guess I m very lucky that with a proper rotation going back to the 80 s ,sometimes growing breakcrops which I knew were marginal however would serve a purpose and get me back to first wheat , and only having "clean" machines on farm has avoided BG.
I contract spray as well , but only saw BG for first time about 12 years ago on customers farms however it's now fairly widespread . Some fields are very bad, ie you see it in every crop and never do second cereals but most are low levels, ie you see plants but not whole areas or fields.
Anyway , my farm is going 100 % GS4 this autumn ,via HLS , never in my lifetime growing another combinable crop !
 

teslacoils

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
Not looked at this thread until just now , one question , what's this " blackgrass " you mention !!?.
Growing my last cereal crops this year , 40 yrs , never had blackgrass on the farm .
Well that's a lie in that a " away" contractor came unexpected to bale straw ( about 8 years ago)and the first two bales( in chamber from an unknown farm) came out so tight that they exploded and he rebaled . I did see unusual plants growing in those two areas and sprayed it off in the following March with round up.
In reality , I know it's a huge problem and I guess I m very lucky that with a proper rotation going back to the 80 s ,sometimes growing breakcrops which I knew were marginal however would serve a purpose and get me back to first wheat , and only having "clean" machines on farm has avoided BG.
I contract spray as well , but only saw BG for first time about 12 years ago on customers farms however it's now fairly widespread . Some fields are very bad, ie you see it in every crop and never do second cereals but most are low levels, ie you see plants but not whole areas or fields.
Anyway , my farm is going 100 % GS4 this autumn ,via HLS , never in my lifetime growing another combinable crop !
Blackgrass been around plenty more than the 80s. I'd go so far as to say that, exciting a cleaver or two in a headland, i don't see another weed here except bg.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 79 42.5%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 65 34.9%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 16.1%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 6 3.2%

Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

  • 1,287
  • 1
As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
Top