Forget about ground nesting birds and top the hell out of it in year one. Add grasses like Timothy to compete with the blackgrass. Rotate it annually, growing a cover crop first then having rapid flowering species in the NUM3 to meet the late spring flowering criteria.
SFI Options and Grassweeds
- Thread starter sahara
- Start date
Forget about ground nesting birds and top the hell out of it in year one. Add grasses like Timothy to compete with the blackgrass. Rotate it annually, growing a cover crop first then having rapid flowering species in the NUM3 to meet the late spring flowering criteria.
yellow belly
Member
- Location
- south west lincolnshire
i do find that blackgrass if cut too early in the season is harder and more costly to control than cutting when it is in full flower
the seeds are not viable till after flowering and seed fill
cut it before flowering and it will head again lower down and cutting becomes a vicious circle
two cuts before harvest 1 after is all that is needed if timing is spot on
if you have some other areas water course ditch buffer planted with cocks foot ect that are not cut the ground nesting birds soon move to them when you regularly cut ab 15 but do enjoy the cover between cuts
if it is practical stagger cutting
i also try to cut in a direction across a field to give the wild life a refuge from the buzzards and crows
when visited i can show an abundance of wild life they aim to help as success criteria
grey partridge hares sky larks and lapwings
- Location
- East Yorkshire
My problem is that I don't trust that these seed mixes won't contain blackgrass seeds. I bought some for a strip of land (not in a scheme) from a 'reputable' merchant, it came thick with blackgrass.
The last thing I need is blackgrass on a currently clean farm. Worries me far more than not taking up SFI for the money!
- Location
- Thames Valley
That’s an unpaid cover crop then? As the system will not allow you to stack SAM2 with NUM3 or SAM3 on the same parcel.
I haven't read up on that. I have a reasonably big area of SW6 winter cover crops for CS so that was what I focused on.
I've got some AB15 sown in August after wholecrop and some more sown 10th September. The August sown has a better level of legumes (and epic blackgrass) but the September sown looks OK too.
I'll read the SFI handbook and come back to you. I do remember a caveat of the scheme start date from a presentation by @BenAdamsAgri
You can have both options on the same parcel with a spring start date. The over winter cover and the legume fallow will be in different SFI years but they will be on the same parcel.
I am sure they are about to close that loophole sadly....
farmerm
Member
- Location
- Shropshire
and you also need to remember you would need to have at least 50% of the year 1 area of SAM2 for years 2 and 3...
farmerm
Member
- Location
- Shropshire
I think the best solution is to start off without blackgrass or ryegrass problems... but ask me again in a couple of years...
As @Luke Cropwalker said, you'd need a spring scheme start date/anniversary so you have the cover crop in a different scheme year as the legume fallow.
Loading…
assets.publishing.service.gov.uk
Goodolddays
Member
- Location
- Spilsby, Lincolnshire
I think this is the biggest issue, people don't really know what they are getting and what they are introducing to their farm. Could end up with bigger problems down the road.
Hindsight
Member
- Location
- Lincolnshire
Andrew Ward speaking about SFI with Jim Egan of Kings from a week ago. 2 minutes to 8 minutes of the video.
Some interesting comments and observations on SFI. Quite negative, I thought, about using NUM3 (and presumably AHL1) as many are as a paid short Summer fallow for April - August 31. Listen and draw your own conclusion but Jim Egan seems to say this is not going to work as will fail to meet the aims of providing flowers during the SUmmer months. I do worry that industry leaders such as Jim Egan and other seeds suppliers will have the ear of our friends at Defra. If you listen through the full six minute interview there are a few other comments where the view of Mr Ward and Mr Egan deviates from views on threads on TFF. No doubt we shall find out. But am concerned a high profile You Tube commentator has a different view. I am also always conscious Kings is part of Frontier Agriculture whose main business involves selling inputs for crop production and purchasing and marketing the output of production.
Comments welcome - especially if you take an alternative view of the interview.
Some interesting comments and observations on SFI. Quite negative, I thought, about using NUM3 (and presumably AHL1) as many are as a paid short Summer fallow for April - August 31. Listen and draw your own conclusion but Jim Egan seems to say this is not going to work as will fail to meet the aims of providing flowers during the SUmmer months. I do worry that industry leaders such as Jim Egan and other seeds suppliers will have the ear of our friends at Defra. If you listen through the full six minute interview there are a few other comments where the view of Mr Ward and Mr Egan deviates from views on threads on TFF. No doubt we shall find out. But am concerned a high profile You Tube commentator has a different view. I am also always conscious Kings is part of Frontier Agriculture whose main business involves selling inputs for crop production and purchasing and marketing the output of production.
Comments welcome - especially if you take an alternative view of the interview.
Andrew farms good / high yielding soils - sfi should not be attractive on such soils and they do not need subsidies at all to grow profitable crops
if an efficient combinable crop farm could make good profits on a 3t/ac of wheat farm with bps then a 4t farm without bps is still higher output so needs no subsidies
this is how sfi has been designed for arable - push production in good soils and offset by making environment more attractive on the less productive soils
i have always noticed that lower yield potential farms theme to be the more efficient with fixed costs most under control ………. they have no choice where as under bps the higher yield potential farms are the ones that always seem to have too many staff, to many tractors etc - BPS comfort blanket has made them fat and lazy
Hindsight
Member
- Location
- Lincolnshire
Why would SFI not be attractive to a as you put it high yielding farm. I can assure you Rape and Beans are as erratic and have potential to be an awful crop on Lincolnshire grade 2 as Staffordshire grade 3. And will I as a taxpayer have to travel to Staffordshire to see whole fields of bird cover and not Lincolnshire??? Thats a shame!!
- Location
- Northumberland
A few generalisations there. Odd describing someone on supposedly better ground as fat and lazy when you choose not to continue with dairy (a bit much like hard work?), when it would have been the perfect sustainable fit for your 'poor' ground.
A bit pointless, also, quoting 3 v 4t wheat crops when you're ditching break crops for sfi.
- Location
- Thames Valley
I don’t see it playing out like this from my experience. Break crops are being dropped even on the best yielding combinable cropping farms. This is more evident where contract farming arrangements exist as the owner can turn their labour and machinery costs on and off wherever they like. Rape and beans after labour after contract fees, storage costs and finance look poor relative to certain SFI options - especially with SFI being no risk and cash flow 12-24 months ahead of a crop sale.
by lazy i mean that efficiency is usually encouraged by necessity. If you were growing 4t plus type crop on good soil then bps was not needed to be profitable ……. but it could buy you a quadtrac or pay an extra wage you maybe didn’t necessarily need “just because”
under bps the extra £80 / ac a farmer with 3t land had was only worth and extra 1/2t of wheat. A 4t potentially farm was £180-£200 per acre better off than the 3t guy so could easy make it work without help of bps. The 4t farm was frankly taking the pee with bps
i use the wheat cash crop as my example as its a good indicator of the potential arable land has - some land simply can’t do 4t yields no matter how genius you farm or how many inputs you throw at it - land that can do 4t plus wheat yields also crop good breaks and it’s the rotational gross margin that needs consideration
our decision to give up cows wasn’t “lazy” btw - i simply lacked any interest in livestock as a kid ( why would anyone do a job they had no interest in ?) and our village center location with land split by main roads made it impossible to expand and become more efficient, had we continued milking cows and done so through bse / f&m etc i very much doubt i would be farming at all by now as the money would have run out a long time ago ! - my father’s heard was extremely high performing and efficient in its time ………. it had to be as again our location and soil type didn’t make it ideal for growing grass and he wasn’t subsidised
Last edited:
I think they are talking quite a lot of sense ref unintended consequences
but if you grow 4t wheat between the rubbish breaks vs 3t wheat you are £200/ac (£100/ac per year) better off. than the 3t farmer. ……… that’s more than BPS was worth even if you grow a break in alternate years !
bps was not needed on higher yield farms IF. they were run efficiently……… inconvenient truth I’m afraid
lloyd
Member
- Location
- Herefordshire
Milk quota with a marketable value was the biggest handout ever given
in the history of modern farming in the UK.Most of the EU it wasn't tradeable for monetary benefit.