Be interesting to put them in with a maize drill at those widths
Row spacing in Beans
- Thread starter phil
- Start date
Fish
Member
- Location
- North yorkshire
Sorry I’m late, we no longer drill w beans at the moment, only springs now.
The old system worked fine, but was very slow, 5 drilling units behind 5 legs, max speed 6/7 kph.
It was a low disturbance subsoiler (24’’ leg space), with a 3 point linkage, on which was an old Stanhay jumbo maize drill. The aim was to place the seeds 4’’ apart at around 2 to 3 ‘’ deep, which was max depth for the old stanhay.
The biggest problem, apart from the speed, was keeping the drill going, no spare parts available, constantly having to check the drill to see if it was still working ok + stopping every few rounds to fill each unit with seed.
It worked very well and we always got good crops, I have looked around for a modern vacuum planter, but they are just to expensive for a few beans.
24’’ rows work, sounds crazy, but it works, a lot less disease, some years we never sprayed for chocolate spot, and never more than once.
One other method I’ve tried is paired rows on a jd 750, so you get, on the 750, 2 rows drilling then an 18’’ gap then 2 more rows, if you see what I mean.
top photo paired rows
harvesting 24’’ rows
harvesting paired rows
- Location
- Southern Ireland
This is fantastic info, really appreciate you taking the time @Fish .
Why spring over winter beans these days out of interest?
I really like the sound of the low disease pressure. Couldn't ever see us not spraying in our climate, but ill keep an open mind!
We tend to have overly thick bean crops here that look fabulous all year, take a lot of management, and then produce remarkably average tonnes in the end.. we are not letting enough sunlight down into the crop id say.
Would love to see a pic of yours at flowering in April or May. We tend to get a lot of floweres but many dont go on to produce pods.
We have been sowing into an oats cover crop and not using any herbicide in recent years. Its works well in general.
- Location
- Exeter, Devon
This might be totally irrelevant as we grow for human consumption, but these are organic spring planted beans at 22” row spacings from last year. 2 seeds planted together roughly 6” apart.
Fish
Member
- Location
- North yorkshire
Yep, thick beans never yield as well as they look.
Have you ever noticed that there are more bean pods per plant on the edge of the field, this was why we tried wide rows, to recreate this all a cross the field.
Another point about beans, they have a high demand for water, too many plants and water stress set in earlier.
We moved to s beans because as a no tiller I needed a mix of autumn/spring drilling and beans fit that slot, gives me 2 bites of the grass weed control cherry, they do yield less, which is the downside, some of the neighbours get 5t/ha+ but I never got that, 4.5 max.
Interesting point re the oat cover crop, might try that.
Have you ever noticed that there are more bean pods per plant on the edge of the field, this was why we tried wide rows, to recreate this all a cross the field.
Another point about beans, they have a high demand for water, too many plants and water stress set in earlier.
We moved to s beans because as a no tiller I needed a mix of autumn/spring drilling and beans fit that slot, gives me 2 bites of the grass weed control cherry, they do yield less, which is the downside, some of the neighbours get 5t/ha+ but I never got that, 4.5 max.
Interesting point re the oat cover crop, might try that.
Coximus
Member
JUst add some sheep into that mix and you shouldnt have any grass weeds....... !
ollie989898
Member
How does the oat cover crop work guys? That is an interesting method. How and when do you remove the oat crop?
Fish
Member
- Location
- North yorkshire
I was at a meeting yesterday where one of the speakers was using oats as a cover before beans, drill on the green, spray off before the beans emerged, in fact they applied no other herbicide other than the glypho burn down.
ollie989898
Member
Ahhh, I see. I thought perhaps it was a bit cleverer than that, wait until the beans had emerged and got going then take out the oats with a modest rate of graminicide or something, leaving the beans to grow on but the ground would be covered and by the time it had all died and disappeared the bean canopy would be well away?
- Location
- Southern Ireland
We have been caught out before by some very fast bean emergence in a mild autumn peeping up before we got round up on.
Decided to use gly on some and graminicide on the rest fearing the gly would kill the emerging beans. Our oats cover crop was very mediocre the same year. But still did a job on keeping weeds at bay as it was dying, and helped the drill to travel.
All beans grew perfectly after birth gly and stratos ultra. We regretted not using the gly on all of it as it was cheaper and got any broadleaf weeds hanging around. To be fair, the oats really stifle everything, it's the oats themselves we are trying to kill mostly.
We are now wondering if gly post em by design is worth a try. Wait even longer. It's sounds risky but worth taking a look on a small scale I think.
Pics below are peeping beans on 29th of October when they were sprayed. And 2 weeks later in mid November with oats starting to die. Cover crop was better elsewhere
Decided to use gly on some and graminicide on the rest fearing the gly would kill the emerging beans. Our oats cover crop was very mediocre the same year. But still did a job on keeping weeds at bay as it was dying, and helped the drill to travel.
All beans grew perfectly after birth gly and stratos ultra. We regretted not using the gly on all of it as it was cheaper and got any broadleaf weeds hanging around. To be fair, the oats really stifle everything, it's the oats themselves we are trying to kill mostly.
We are now wondering if gly post em by design is worth a try. Wait even longer. It's sounds risky but worth taking a look on a small scale I think.
Pics below are peeping beans on 29th of October when they were sprayed. And 2 weeks later in mid November with oats starting to die. Cover crop was better elsewhere
Attachments
- Location
- Bury St Edmunds
Presumably spring beans?
- Location
- NSW, Newstralya
I always planted Faba Beans ( Vica faba - not sure how that compares with your “beans”. Cool season crop ) on 1 m row spacings, largely for disease control ( increased air flow down the rows ) & to minimise costs by allowing band spraying until the rows close in
Fish
Member
- Location
- North yorkshire
No winters, drill the s oat cover in mid/late August at quite a high seed rate+ a kg or two of phacelia.
cider_eater
Member
- Location
- north of Lands End
I have found the best way with beans is broadcast [fert spreader] and plough them in lightly across field deep enough keep birds away, try a few
acres.
alomy75
Member
Our neighbour did that (post em glyphosate) and we combined them for him. There was a crop but it wasn’t very exciting. A while ago but I think it was 1/4 or 1/2 l/ha when they were 6” tall.We have been caught out before by some very fast bean emergence in a mild autumn peeping up before we got round up on.
Decided to use gly on some and graminicide on the rest fearing the gly would kill the emerging beans. Our oats cover crop was very mediocre the same year. But still did a job on keeping weeds at bay as it was dying, and helped the drill to travel.
All beans grew perfectly after birth gly and stratos ultra. We regretted not using the gly on all of it as it was cheaper and got any broadleaf weeds hanging around. To be fair, the oats really stifle everything, it's the oats themselves we are trying to kill mostly.
We are now wondering if gly post em by design is worth a try. Wait even longer. It's sounds risky but worth taking a look on a small scale I think.
Pics below are peeping beans on 29th of October when they were sprayed. And 2 weeks later in mid November with oats starting to die. Cover crop was better elsewhere
- Location
- NSW, Newstralya
Be VERY VERY cautious about using low rates of glyphosate like that
that’s how you breed & select for chemical resistance . . .
we now have lots of issues with glypho resistant ryegrass & barnyard grass ( a summer growing grass ), amongst others, which I think relate directly back to the early 80’s ( when zero till was just taking off here & when glypho was still very expensive. Like $20 / litre in 1980 ), when agros were recommending rates as low as 300ml/ha of 360
- Location
- Southern Ireland
I certainly wasn't talking about a reduced application rate. And i don't think Roy was either.
The bean as it emerges before it opens the leaves can withstand a full rate it seems. We used 1.4kg of powermax (720g of active). That's 1000g of gly.
alomy75
Member
We did tell him…Be VERY VERY cautious about using low rates of glyphosate like that
that’s how you breed & select for chemical resistance . . .
we now have lots of issues with glypho resistant ryegrass & barnyard grass ( a summer growing grass ), amongst others, which I think relate directly back to the early 80’s ( when zero till was just taking off here & when glypho was still very expensive. Like $20 / litre in 1980 ), when agros were recommending rates as low as 300ml/ha of 360
Big-Milton
New Member
Would you consider selling your stanhay jumbo. Been on the look out for a long time for one for peas and beans for the fresh market