Ergot in Spring wheat

DanniAgro

Member
Plus good grass weed control, sterile strip round the crop maybe, decent rotation with break crops. I forget the reasons for doing these things till something like ergot or Take All comes back and bites me. Patchy emergence with the crop at all sorts of different growth stages seems to worsen it, so a good seedbed must help. Don't know whether not drilling the tramlines would help, so there are less "greens" to get infected progressively.
Cheers for those ideas, and will keep them in mind for the next time.
 

DrWazzock

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
You can get ergot in barley.
Yes. Never seems as bad though. I think the barley is better at crowding out grass weeds and has a less open canopy. Open canopies, smaller plant populations (due to poor establishment, dry seedbeds etc) seem to favour ergot from my experience. Never seem to find it in a good dense even crop.
 

alomy75

Member
You can get ergot in barley.
You can get ergot in any grass species. Cereals and grass weeds. Some are more prone to it than others depending on how open their floret architecture is. If the flowering stage coincides with the time that the airborne spores are there; you will get ergot no matter what you do. Spring wheat in particular is vulnerable because of this timing clash.
 

DrWazzock

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
Our intake tipping pace is 300-600mt per hour, but our colour sorter top speed is about 30mt /hr, so we are unable to colour sort on intake. The majority of our colour sorting is done overnight, computer controlled.

Analysis of every load is recorded on intake, along with a record of ergot status (present/absent). The record for each load includes which intake pit, intake silo, drier and storage silo and this allows us to monitor the average spec for each silo and monitor the prevalence of ergot in each silo. As soon as harvest intake is complete, silos with ergot are colour sorted, starting with the worst affected.




For now we are in a funny grey area time of year, where some mills have accepted that there are quality issues and so they have moved the goalposts already, taking claims down to 72 on softs and Gp4 hards. Others are still holding their usual 74.

For this year we have a new grade that sits inbetween feed and low grade milling, so a sort of Gp4 hard grade for Gp1 & 2 loads.
@Woldgrain Storage
Credit where credit is due. You have helped us out greatly with our ergot problem this year in a highly efficient and cost effective manner.
You have cleared the overwhelming logjam that had built up in front of our antiquated drying and storage facility.
In short you have made dealing with our grain easy and a pleasure, rather than it being a lottery and nightmare of slow movement, early forced sales to make space, rejection and claims.
All being well we will be sending most of ours straight into your store next year.
For once I feel that somebody is proactively helping us as smaller farmers, solving problems rather than creating them, and helping us work for the benefits that real cooperation can bring.
Excellent work. Many thanks.(y)
 

Flat 10

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Fen Edge
@Woldgrain Storage
Credit where credit is due. You have helped us out greatly with our ergot problem this year in a highly efficient and cost effective manner.
You have cleared the overwhelming logjam that had built up in front of our antiquated drying and storage facility.
In short you have made dealing with our grain easy and a pleasure, rather than it being a lottery and nightmare of slow movement, early forced sales to make space, rejection and claims.
All being well we will be sending most of ours straight into your store next year.
For once I feel that somebody is proactively helping us as smaller farmers, solving problems rather than creating them, and helping us work for the benefits that real cooperation can bring.
Excellent work. Many thanks.(y)
Can you use the facilities without buying in then??!!!:)(y)(y)(y)
 

Humble Village Farmer

Member
BASE UK Member
Location
Essex
Another thing RT have stuck their noses into. Suppose I have a rejection for ergot despite the fact I have had nothing in any of my samples, can’t see any on my heap etc. I then have to write down what I will do to prevent it happening again. Realistically to be sure I guess I would have to have all my ww tonnage colour sorted at a cost approx £20/t. Some years that would near enough bankrupt me. No one understands the concept of risk these days.
They absolutely do understand the concept of risk, they are just making sure that we as producers take it all.

Central storage has been a boon this year, with wet grain, ergot and low bushel weights all taken care of, and of course, space during harvest.
 
@Woldgrain Storage
Credit where credit is due. You have helped us out greatly with our ergot problem this year in a highly efficient and cost effective manner.
You have cleared the overwhelming logjam that had built up in front of our antiquated drying and storage facility.
In short you have made dealing with our grain easy and a pleasure, rather than it being a lottery and nightmare of slow movement, early forced sales to make space, rejection and claims.
All being well we will be sending most of ours straight into your store next year.
For once I feel that somebody is proactively helping us as smaller farmers, solving problems rather than creating them, and helping us work for the benefits that real cooperation can bring.
Excellent work. Many thanks.(y)

Many thanks for your kind words, I'm glad it all fell into place. Don't forget to arrange a visit to the store once the pressure of harvest/landwork eases.

Any credit to the store ought to be shared with our fantastic team of local hauliers, who can be relied on to pull out all the stops at harvest to make sure our members are looked after.
 

Humble Village Farmer

Member
BASE UK Member
Location
Essex
Can you use the facilities without buying in then??!!!:)(y)(y)(y)
I think so but as a non member you'll pay more and they will only help out non members when it doesn't impact in their own.

There's always lots of talk about cost of membership but it's a professional service and farmers tend to underestimate the true cost of doing things on farm.

And you never get a rejected load either
 

ajd132

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Suffolk
I think so but as a non member you'll pay more and they will only help out non members when it doesn't impact in their own.

There's always lots of talk about cost of membership but it's a professional service and farmers tend to underestimate the true cost of doing things on farm.

And you never get a rejected load either
Correct non members can use services but it must cost more because they Havnt made a commitment. The extra cash goes into the pot for the members/owners.
 

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

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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/
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