AB15 2 year legume fallow

If I had the chance, I'd have half the farm down to it.

I’ve only just got the go ahead. Ask me again in 12 months and 24 months time!

teslacoils said:

Mine was lovely. Shame it didn't get topped before the deluge. This is year two. I need to check up on the rules re lime etc.

I've seen several others where the clover hasn't established as well. I put this down to drilling . I bought the seed with the large and small seeds separated, then drilled the large (grass, vetch), rolled it, einbocked the clovers and small seeds, rolled again. I'm not bothered about grass seeding. Following crop is tbc. I'm only going to disc it up a couple of times and drill into it. After a liberal dose of slurry.

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Interesting on the drilling. The legume bit of our mix didn't do very well. Part I think was due to slugs. Put one dose of pellets on and should have put more on. The other part was probably due to drilling depth. What date ideally do you think this mix needs drilling? How much are you valuing being able to take a cut off after the end of the second year?

One other advantage of AB15 over AB8 is it finishes in August rather than 31 December. This will be the problem with our set-aside. We are going to have an extremely large area of spring crops to direct drill into stubbles in spring 2025.

B'o'B said:

I’ve only just got the go ahead. Ask me again in 12 months and 24 months time!

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What other ways of skinning the cat did you consider, and why did you decide on AB15 as your main option (if that is what you have done) in the end?

Flat 10 said:

Thistles are fairly easy to control in cereals. I would say weed seed bank not a problem (i have pulled various bits out of longterm Saside which were in a terrible state. You do need to consider leather jackets and wireworms after long term grass, these have been more of a problem for us.

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Will leatherjackets and wireworms be much worse after a 5 year ley rather than a 2 year one? Enough so that you wouldn't grow wheat after the former but would after the latter? What are worst to best crops at tolerating these pests after grass?

teslacoils said:

If I had the chance, I'd have half the farm down to it.

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And reasons for preferring it over AB8 (particularly in the small, heavy field farm scenario that I have)?

Feldspar said:

What other ways of skinning the cat did you consider, and why did you decide on AB15 as your main option (if that is what you have done) in the end?

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Looked at quite number of scenarios but AB15 seemed to offer more in terms of soil health than other options, AB8 was a contender but I don’t have a ready home for the grass. I don't really like the look of either of the over winter stubble options that you seem to be keen on.

Feldspar said:

And reasons for preferring it over AB8 (particularly in the small, heavy field farm scenario that I have)?

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Plot sizes. I have the legume fallow in 6ha chunks.

Feldspar said:

Interesting on the drilling. The legume bit of our mix didn't do very well. Part I think was due to slugs. Put one dose of pellets on and should have put more on. The other part was probably due to drilling depth. What date ideally do you think this mix needs drilling? How much are you valuing being able to take a cut off after the end of the second year?

One other advantage of AB15 over AB8 is it finishes in August rather than 31 December. This will be the problem with our set-aside. We are going to have an extremely large area of spring crops to direct drill into stubbles in spring 2025.

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In in ideal world, the clover wants to smother the grass.

I'm aiming to cut it or bale it or whatever is allowed the day it finishes, not for the value but to get the residue clear. I'll have to check the rules but I'm not against giving it another year. Cut off for drilling wants to be end August. We put this in after spring oats so if we go into wheat (unlikely due to nature) we will be on a six year break. More likely is I will remove the greenery, DD a westerwolds grass, slop on the digestate, spray out the blws. Then winter beans or osr with some kerb before wheat again .

May redrain the land before the next cash crop. Hence why it's in stewardship.

B'o'B said:

Looked at quite number of scenarios but AB15 seemed to offer more in terms of soil health than other options, AB8 was a contender but I don’t have a ready home for the grass. I don't really like the look of either of the over winter stubble options that you seem to be keen on.

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I am not that keen on them either from a soil point of view. However, they are very easy to manage, give as good a margin as anything, increase the profit of the rest of the rotation, don't have any establishment risk, and don't leave us out of pocket had the govt decided to pull the scheme.

Also, there has been some good growth on our fallow fields so that I am much less worried about the soil in these fields than the winter wheat.

teslacoils said:

Plot sizes. I have the legume fallow in 6ha chunks.

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Can you explain more. Are you doing only small (6 ha) fields or parts of bigger fields? I will only choose options to major on that can cover whole fields (which both AB8 and AB15 can).

Flat 10 said:

Yes. Beans and osr are more tolerant. After a 5 year ley I personally would want to burn down and cultivate at least 2 months before planting to let the rooks eat the blighters. Others on here will say that DD into a live sward can work as the they will eat decaying sward in preference to the crop. I have no experience but someone put some cracking pictures on here once.

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Hmm... if cultivation followed by a 2 month break is needed that would mean a spring crop in yr6 would not happen which would be quite a negative for the AB8.

Feldspar said:

Can you explain more. Are you doing only small (6 ha) fields or parts of bigger fields? I will only choose options to major on that can cover whole fields (which both AB8 and AB15 can).

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Sorry, I thought ab8 was limited to smaller plots. Ab8 = flower rich margins and plots? I also have an area of extended fallow in my rotation under mid tier. This was done mainly to vary my application - at the time mid tier was going to be all competitive. Had I known noone would apply, I'd have gone for 2/3 of the farm ab15 and 1/3 a winter or spring cereal for the easy life.

Feldspar said:

Anyone care to give an update as to how they are getting on with AB15? @Fat hen, @teslacoils, @B'o'B?

We have some more land that we've got recently. One is a farm with a lot of small and awkward shaped fields. I am going to enter this into a scheme along with some more land with larger, more productive fields. My default was to roll out the same strategy has I have used on the existing land which makes heavy use of the overwinter stubble option.

However, I really don't think this farm with the small fields is even profitable to crop with wheat every other year given the future outlook. Therefore, I was thinking about putting sizeable areas down to some form of grass. The two obvious options are AB8 and AB15.

We have used AB8 quite a bit already. I find this fairly hassle free with the major exception being the spread of thistles which seem very hard to contain given the allowed mowing timings. I did have 12ha of AB15 in a previous scheme Mid Tier scheme that we pulled out of early from it. I remember being a bit worried about how effectively we could stop the black-grass heading (it always amazed me how quickly it reheads and often on the 3-4th time too low for the mower). In the 5 year AB8 black-grass seems to fade away so I'm not too worried about it there.

Should I be concerned about the return of ryegrass seed to the soil? A dumb question, but could this seed become resistant ryegrass (which sounds far worse than resistant black-grass)? I remember with the last mix choosing more of one type of ryegrass to avoid seed return. Also, do people find that other weeds like wild oats get through this mix?

Lastly, how have people found establishing a following crop after the grass? We tried shallow cultivating it and found the ground incredibly hard (in the dry summer of 2018). In the end we couldn't shallow cultivate it as the cultivator wouldn't go in the ground so we had to use a Sumo. The field took an extra cultivation pass and produced a worse crop than the land that had been in bare fallow. I'm not prepared to put beans in direct drilled after grass (as I know some do) because I hate growing beans and am rubbish at growing them. Direct drilling wheat into ex-grass land seems to cause problems.

This all rather leads me to think that AB8 might be a better option. My main worry here is what the weed seed bank (esp thistles but also maybe couch / more dominant grasses) might be left over were we to return to cropping. All other areas up to now which have gone into AB8 I have been prepared to never crop again if necessary, but on the scale I'm thinking about here I cannot make this assumption this time.

Thoughts much appreciated.

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I will attempt to address your points and put down as many observations I can think of from ab15 would appreciate your thoughts on my remarks.

What quantities of each option do you have or plan to have?
I’ve got about 23 ha of a AB15 and probably 3 ha of AB8. Like you are saying I think that the soil structure benefits immensely from both of these options in light of the dense rooting, mix of species, the perennial nature of the species, etc. Even on the blow away sand AB8 has turned the soil from tan to black... just hope i can keep it that way when it returns to cropping. Sand structures itself more slowly than clay I understand.

As you are saying thistles are major feature of the AB8 land. Especially in the lightest areas. Apparently you can spot spray but I’ll be there for quite a long time! I am not overly keen on this option compared to the AB15 because I see the ab15 as having more beneficial species mix for soil and a way of dealing with BG. But on the flip side AB8 needs less cutting - no BG in these sandy plots. How do you deal with bg in ab8?

What do you mean about choosing types of ryegrass?
Yes seeding RG is something to avoid i am sure. Strong patches of wild oats have appeared in a field but cut before seeding. Probably appear again this spring time.

I would not try to establish a winter crop straight after AB15 again. Mainly because from Aug it needed spraying off twice to kill the clover in particular. Plus after 5 cuts with wheels over much of the field leaves it tight, even with a light tractor and Flotations.

I was anticipating a much better WW crop after the legume mix then I got. It was in the 2017 Oct so conditions were getting sticky not great. The structure of the soil was seemingly better at depth than it was in the top 3 inches. 5 cuts with the 2.4m flail had left the surface a few inches compacted and tight, yet full of roots. Sticky conditions for loosening with the flat lift , probably smearing at depth. Things went cold and wet. Crows hammered one field of Ww leaving 20ac to redrill.

That said the following harvest in the same field did 4t/ac on 2nd Ww seed from the heap. Perhaps the residual roots and structure fromAB15 aided this.

The dry 2018 autumn made good establishment of AB15. Some flatlift, surface disking, roll, drill, roll, pellets. Great coverage which helps the poorer areas.

Blackgrass keeps wanting to head even in Aug. Progressively shorter stems. Difficulty to
Cut the bg in ruts. Four or five cuts. Have also done cuts just to stop the RG from dropping seed. I find it maybe will try to rehead but not more than once.
Could do with something wider than a 2.4 meter flail! What do you use?

Apparently local livestock farmers like to take a cut of the AB15 bg and all ...but of course I don’t know anything about that! Nutritional value to cattle similar to wheat so they say.

The agreement runs out dec 20 will probably flatlift if poss then surface disk 2-3” for spring crop. Not ideal timing Will be interesting to see how it kills off.
What do you use to kill it? We used roundup plus kyleo

Both options pay very well and I would struggle to match that with cash crop let alone a break crop on grade 3 clas To my mind we run a business so if something seems like it pays well with minimal risk and good for the soil then it’s time to fill your boots! I will be looking to expand the areas of both options when I apply this year for a new jan 2021 agreement.


Will look to ditch ab2 as it doesn’t allow for cover cropping and weeds can get big.

teslacoils said:

Sorry, I thought ab8 was limited to smaller plots. Ab8 = flower rich margins and plots? I also have an area of extended fallow in my rotation under mid tier. This was done mainly to vary my application - at the time mid tier was going to be all competitive. Had I known noone would apply, I'd have gone for 2/3 of the farm ab15 and 1/3 a winter or spring cereal for the easy life.

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Ditto thought Ab8 was for small plots. Yes the mid tier was supposed to be competitive. I’m considering putting most of the farm into options. More stable than crops.

Anyone know what will happen to mid tier going fwd with ELMs etc

Fat hen said:

Ditto thought Ab8 was for small plots. Yes the mid tier was supposed to be competitive. I’m considering putting most of the farm into options. More stable than crops.

Anyone know what will happen to mid tier going fwd with ELMs etc

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I think under the Simplifed Offers AB8 can be any size. Mid Tier I think might have limited the size to 2 or 5 ha. ELS certainly did for the old field corner.

We actually pulled out of a Mid Tier scheme that we put together to maximise the points because it was meant to be competitive. When the Simplified Offers came out which allowed larger areas to be put in (I assume because they were somewhat desperate given most farmers pooh-poohed Mid Tier) we swapped across. It did mean we didn't get paid for a year's worth of Mid Tier including some capital improvements, but the change was worth it I calculated.