Recent content by farmingfred

Wexcombe Manor Farm is situated between Marlborough and Hungerford. A mixed No-till arable and beef 1500 acre family run farm. We require an enthusiastic, hard working person to work alongside the permanent team. Duties will include tractor driving, mainly corn carting from combine to store...

A little yes, but was cc this winter, spring barley now, with a good clover understory still going strong in places ( where the spitfire wasn't needed in the wheat)

Both, it had been 4 year ley with 1 or 2 cuts each year and grazing, light chalky soils with flints. It had been grazed till mid September then sprayed, it was very hard in September (due to grazing and the flints) so we had to drill it when it had some moisture

We did notill wheat into grass October 2014 which was very slow to get away. Was cheap to grow:- only herbs were glyphosate and spitfire. Yield was 9t/ha when farm average was 10. Would have been better put in earlier but were reliant on contractors then. I'm happier with peas or beans after grass.

I would think the beans option is best, we have taken two fields out of grass this spring putting peas in, a similar idea. The spring option suits me better as gives winter grazing the cattle came off one field 3 days prior to drilling. Like @Richard III we've always found 2nd wheat better after...

That is what Steve suggested

Sorry this was meant to be the third slide!

A really interesting day, lots to take in. Take home message: "Admit that you have a problem- a lack of Carbon in your soil" solve the problem by feeding the soil biology with carbon. A very simplistic round up of 6 hours of information!

It's the $64 million question: which is the best but least evil form of slug control, with the least impact on the worms, ground beetles, animals higher up the food chain and water quality? AND how quickly will the beneficial insects get to levels where there is sufficient control of slugs to an...

There was a mixed opinion on straw harrows at the CS meeting. My feeling with them is 2 fold, they are disturbing too much ground and anything which mechanically kills slugs will have a similar effect on other soil life, but then the flip side of that what is the effect of slug pellets on soil life?

A little daunting standing up in front of you lot! It was an interesting afternoon a few good bits of info.

Returning to the OP: Yesterday we combined 2 neighbouring fields of W Wheat. Both are 8.4ha and were drilled on 16th September after OSR (with very similar history). One drilled with Cross Slot and the other 2x Top Down 1xCarrier then drilled with Kuhn Megant. Both had the same spray and...

Personally I'd go with a cover crop, drilled with minimal disturbance and then wheat again with minimal disturbance in mid October drilling on the green.

Their comment to me was that the Hard red wheats in the US work best with the strippers, softer wheats not so good?

Shelbourne Reynolds were sceptical about its performance on wheat in the UK (especially soft wheats) when I spoke to them at cereals.