undersowin spring oats

juke

Member
Location
DURHAM
has anyone got any experience of undersowing a crop of spring oats with white clover/yellowtrefoil n what the advantages were or disadvantages, or simply have an opinion on the matter .. thanks
 

Great In Grass

Member
Location
Cornwall.
that would be the idea, then to act as a short term cover crop between the oats and drilling winter wheat
(y)

We do a mix I know it's 3kg/acre seed rate but can't for the life of me remember the ratio of each species. The Yellow Trefoil will fixate some N and when it runs out of puff near the end of the season the white clover takes over.
 

juke

Member
Location
DURHAM
10 st / acre is round about our usual sowing rate, gonna broadcast the clover/trefoil of the back of the claydon inbetween the rows as much as possible
 

The_Swede

Member
Arable Farmer
Similarly to @Jim Bullock I've been wondering about trying this on some permanent spring barley ground - broadcast yellow trefoil into standing crop ahead of some decent rain, allow to grow on and set seed then flail off, say late autumn. Glyphosate if needed very early in the following spring before drilling next SB crop with aitchison tine drill - then wait and see what germinates in the way of yellow trefoil (and / or other weeds!)

If the first undersowing had taken well I wonder if there will be enough mulch to prevent a decent weed flush and so perhaps spare the glyphosate and secondly shed seed is obviously free thereby once 'up and running' its sort of a self sustaining system. Its a conventional situation so always the option of and appropriate herbicide if it gets too thick at any stage?
 

Oakbank

Member
BASE UK Member
Oats are quite a broad leaved cereal, so getting the seed rate right that allows an under-sowing to be successful could be very tricky. Barley or Triticale might be a better bet as they both have a more erect growth habit and would not create so much shade or competition. It all depends on what your priorities are and what compromises you are prepared to accept.
 

Wigeon

Member
Arable Farmer
Thinking about this too, to be then followed with WW. Will try to drop it in bands between wide row spaced oats (250mm) put in with horsch and a narrow tine, and then roll.

What do people think would be the best way to drill the following wheat? I might be able to get someone with RTK to drive in straighter lines than me, so could put it up the clover/trefoil rows, or at an angle, or across etc, or will the rows have filled out through the oat stubble by then and so it won't matter? Any ideas? Many thanks!
 

juke

Member
Location
DURHAM
finally cut our spring oats today one field had white clover + yellow trefoil undersown into it at the time of drilling , the other was sown just with the claydon n followed usual practises for growing spring oats , the field that was undersown has definitely out yielded the conventional couldn't say by how much exactly at the moment but looks like its been worth while n will be repeated again next spring.
 
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