- Location
- S. Staffs
Taking out the surviving areas of OSR and sowing AHL1 the stems are full of larvae so even though it didn’t look too bad from a distance I fancy it wouldn’t have made the most profitable crop.
OSR this year ?
- Thread starter buttercup
- Start date
- Location
- Lincolnshire
Same here. It did look like it was trying to grow during the last spell and has bulked up slightly and flowered but it’s thin weak rubbish and many are dying or even getting severed just above the root due to the numbers of larvae. Tempted to spray the lot off as it will hardly be worth harvesting and get full of weeds. Oddly one hectare block that juts into the forest is almost normal. Not going into birdseed as concerned about residual herbicide issues which with hindsight were a very expensive mistake.
- Location
- S. Staffs
We were lucky as the only cost to date was HSS!
- Location
- Lincolnshire
We bought new seed. Every time we do that it seems to guarantee failure. Previous year with HSS was reasonable. Question is do I try again with HSS off my best bit this summer or call it a day? Wiser now though as to when to throw in the towel with the crop after drilling. Should have listened to my gut which said stop spending, not my over optimistic agronomist. Wasn’t an easy decision though. If establishment is cheap can always follow a failure with spring barley.
- Location
- Lincolnshire
Call it a day. Sack agronomist.
- Location
- Spilsby Lincolnshire
Dont bother, I hate the stuff!! go to the Casino and have fun wasting your money !!
- Location
- People's Republic of South Yorkshire
Just had a weekend in Denmark.
The OSR looks great everywhere.
Not seen a bad field as drove round.
I am sure they not ripped up every bad/average piece, so assuming it's growing well there.
Any Danes on here to say what they doing,
Do they get flea beetle??
The OSR looks great everywhere.
Not seen a bad field as drove round.
I am sure they not ripped up every bad/average piece, so assuming it's growing well there.
Any Danes on here to say what they doing,
Do they get flea beetle??
- Location
- Haute Vienne, France
Perhaps its because the place almost floats on pig muck. Denmark has 28 million pigs and a farmed area of 2.6 million hectares.
We have yet to rip up about a third of our rape that was drilled last year and in a normal year when we had our planned cereal area drilled it would have been more.
What's going to make it is either on a slope or got drains underneath it. It was the wet weather that destroyed it not flea beetles, we do get them but rarely spray for them.
Our normal plan is plenty of home saved seed off the back of a chisel plough, slug pellets, roll, Butisan and then lock up the cheque book till decision time when I decide how much Kerb to order. Anything that looks like it won't make it goes into Sunflowers.
- Location
- Lincolnshire
No amount of pig muck makes up for stems hollowed out due to larvae infestation. The plants are actually detaching just above the root here and falling over as the stem is chewed right through. Without control of insect pests it’s simply a lottery.
- Location
- Lincolnshire
We had a very hot spell here in late August. Every bug going seemed to get into the crop including cabbage root fly with took half the fieid. Weather / insect lottery. Had it been colder and wetter it could have been different. But that’s where we are now. Too risky.
- Location
- Lincolnshire
Something I wonder is have we bred out or neglected the plants natural defences? Glucosinalates?
4course
Member
- Location
- north yorks
just a thought why not sfi -sam 2 and take out the non osr plants .our sam2 seems to be working well with ww/beans and could by altering seed rates have made a choice of which to take out we took the beans out . As yet we dont know the rules coming forward for catch crops established in the autumn it may be possible to do both and if you end up destroying the lot and starting again with a spring crop of whatever at least the cost of sowing the osr would be covered after all its aparently a "puplic good" thus reducing the risk
- Location
- Lincolnshire
I understand the sentiment. But it’s such a good entry for wheat and it often paid very well here. There’s nothing more satisfying than trailer loads of black gold. I think we will be lucky to fill half a 10 ton trailer off 25 acres this year.
I’m reduced to continuous wheat on the heavy and continuous barley on the light land now other than grass occasionally as it rotates round.
- Location
- Lincolnshire.
- Location
- Lincolnshire
Well, with so called climate change and warming, at the same time as reducing insecticide usage, I can see production here going only one way unless somebody can come up with a plan for safe insect pest control.
Yet we will be importing food produced using harsher chemicals abroad.
How do they keep all that imported broccoli clean? If we grew it without insecticide in my garden as I’ve done, it would be hoaching with bugs- as that’s nature.
- Location
- Lincolnshire
Surely there’s scope to use pheromones? Spray with something that deters attack without killing anything. I mean a flea beetle doesn’t attack a nettle or a fat hen so it must be the smell?
- Location
- Haute Vienne, France
If everyone extended their rotations to 6/7 years then you might see a big drop in flea beetle. Easy for me to say when Sunflowers and Maize are bigger crops locally than OSR.
- Location
- Lincolnshire.
Got the flowering spray on yesterday. Definitely our worst year for flea beetle and stress growing, but the hybrid has really pulled together especially after the final N.
Was thinking of going back to conventional but it does seem you really need strong vigour to get through the season these days.
Was thinking of going back to conventional but it does seem you really need strong vigour to get through the season these days.
- Location
- Yorkshire
Which variety are you on there? It looks good.
I've been on Acacia (conv) for a few years now and it performs well.
Seem to planting it earlier and earlier though. Used to be bang on the 15th of August, now late July. Then a bit of N when I can see a crop.