A different blackgrass approach

[Neddy flanders]

ITs time for a few fresh ideas.

On a mixed soil all arable farm, cultural and chemical controls in WHeat are working, but simply not well enough. Reducing populations from 1500/m2 seedlings pre drilling to just 1 or 2 now sounds good, but with each having 40 tillers, the farm will look shocking in a months time.

So, if it can't be controlled in wheat, why grow wheat?

Which other crops a) can you kill 100% bgeass in or b) it doesn't show and only has a marginal impact on yield.

Beans and rape can use kerb, which does sufficient to leave a population that is not really visible and only reduces yield slightly. Wht else?
Maize? Grass? Spring crops? Miscanrhus? Winter barley?

Time for a non-wheat rotation ?

 

[Ysgythan]

Graze it.

 

[Condi]

Maize and mischanthus grass will both outgrow BG so no effect on yield, but the seed bank will be in the soil for the following crop, albeit at a reduced level. If you then put wheat back in you've not really achieved much other than a small number of BG plants - which will obviously then seed and you're back to square 1.

BG cant survive being grazed, so the easiest way is to put it down to a lay and graze with cattle or sheep. Takes a couple of years, but will clear it.

 

[franklin]

So, if it can't be controlled in wheat, why grow wheat?

Which other crops a) can you kill 100% bgeass in or b) it doesn't show and only has a marginal impact on yield.

Beans and rape can use kerb, which does sufficient to leave a population that is not really visible and only reduces yield slightly. Wht else?
Maize? Grass? Spring crops? Miscanrhus? Winter barley?

Time for a non-wheat rotation ?

While control in wheat is perhaps variable, control in the Kerb-able crops is actually worse. You have a false sense of security in OSR but its there, in numbers, in the canopy. Similarly winter barley you will have less chemical control than wheat, yet a smaller yield loss. Winter oats you have close to sod all chemical control, but again, very small yield loss.

Spring linseed will show stacks of BG and your field may look a bit ropey, but again yield loss will be very small.

But a year like this and a 50%+ spring cropping option on heavy land will show some real problems.

Round these parts, as an example, forage rye is becoming an option. Does it work? Well, I have heading BG in wheat right now, and they wont be silaging any rye until close to Lincs show I wouldnt imagine.

I am favouring more mechanical control, so leaning towards crops that can have the BG removed by a hoe or roundup in crop. I think with some work on the drawing board, you could remove BG in linseed with a weed wiper quite well. Similarly I dont see any reason why you shouldnt get 100% control of BG in wheat mechanically.

But in the short-term, if you cant live with it, then best to grass it down. I have a field which was ploughed for the first time since 2006, and has gone from grass ley to wheat. It has a crop trial in it for BG control and the results are looking very interesting. But the grass certainly hasnt cleared the problem and nor has the ploughing. But it should be clean enough to rogue.

I was not farming in the days before Atlantis - were crops BG free then?

 

[shakerator]

ITs time for a few fresh ideas.

On a mixed soil all arable farm, cultural and chemical controls in WHeat are working, but simply not well enough. Reducing populations from 1500/m2 seedlings pre drilling to just 1 or 2 now sounds good, but with each having 40 tillers, the farm will look shocking in a months time.

So, if it can't be controlled in wheat, why grow wheat?

Which other crops a) can you kill 100% bgeass in or b) it doesn't show and only has a marginal impact on yield.

Beans and rape can use kerb, which does sufficient to leave a population that is not really visible and only reduces yield slightly. Wht else?
Maize? Grass? Spring crops? Miscanrhus? Winter barley?

Time for a non-wheat rotation ?

Yes non wheat rotation certainly makes sense.

But to be fair does it really matter if the farm looks a mess if you're still getting 10t/ha ?
A lot of messy fields can still yield well, enough to say they won't be a winter cereal the next year tho ....

The stigma of a weedy farm is a poor farm is disappearing fast IMHO

 

[Neddy flanders]

Yes non wheat rotation certainly makes sense.

But to be fair does it really matter if the farm looks a mess if you're still getting 10t/ha ?
A lot of messy fields can still yield well, enough to say they won't be a winter cereal the next year tho ....

The stigma of a weedy farm is a poor farm is disappearing fast IMHO

Agreed, even in the very bad year 2013-14 when bG levels were high, barns were still fairly full. Does a weedy wheat pay more than a clean crop of x

 

[spikeislander]

That's as maybe but a weedy farm that accepts that will just get worse and yield will suffer when levels get higher

 

[shakerator]

Agreed, even in the very bad year 2013-14 when bG levels were high, barns were still fairly full. Does a weedy wheat pay more than a clean crop of x

I think so . I actually think blackgrass is repairing the soil , and if you let it flower and set seed for 2 years (ie did absolutely nothing except maybe graze a bit) it would exhaust itself . Of course it's culturally not acceptable to do though! I think the health of a wheat plant never recovers after Atlantis also

 

[ajd132]

Second wheat i think will be a big no for us in the future as it's very very dirty. First wheat has blackgrass in, it looks abit messy but I doubt will affect yield.
Hoeing is something I'm looking very closely at

 

[shakerator]

Second wheat i think will be a big no for us in the future as it's very very dirty. First wheat has blackgrass in, it looks abit messy but I doubt will affect yield.
Hoeing is something I'm looking very closely at

Have you looked at cross drilling ?

 

[ajd132]

Have you looked at cross drilling ?

What's that? I could use my drill as a hoe.

 

[shakerator]

What's that? I could use my drill as a hoe.

https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/cross-seeding-grass-weeds.46256/

Done quite a bit this year

 

[shakerator]

http://mro.massey.ac.nz/bitstream/handle/10179/3076/02_whole.pdf?sequence=4

No yield advantage in the study (pasture) but don't know where above study has gone it showed yield benefit and 40% lower ryegrass

 

[franklin]

Second wheat i think will be a big no for us in the future as it's very very dirty. First wheat has blackgrass in, it looks abit messy but I doubt will affect yield.
Hoeing is something I'm looking very closely at

I am tending to think that 1st wheat followed by a break then back to 1st wheat doesnt help. I'm really hoping that a 2yr grass ley in the rotation, and putting wheat perhaps more like one year in 6 will work well. My field of wheat last year was its first in 6 years and that worked very well

 

[shakerator]

This one more favourable

http://caws.org.au/awc/1999/awc199915101.pdf

 

[bovrill]

I am favouring more mechanical control, so leaning towards crops that can have the BG removed by a hoe or roundup in crop. I think with some work on the drawing board, you could remove BG in linseed with a weed wiper quite well. Similarly I dont see any reason why you shouldnt get 100% control of BG in wheat mechanically.

I'm trying to come up with a mechanical system which will work.
So far my back of an envelope scribbles involve a wide spaced drill, but the seed dropped in rows and covered by following pigtail cultivator tines between the rows, leaving something like a mini potato baulk. This keeps the wheat growing in a dryer bit of soil, and the black grass can germinate in the wet furrow bottoms.
An 8m drill would only need 26ish tines, and would be wide enough to run an 8m inter row harrow and tine cultivator through every few weeks behind a very small and light tractor to chit and destroy blackgrass, and not do too much crop damage.

I plan to knock something sort of half scale up to try this autumn. Pick the wettest ten acres I've got, have a 4m set up behind a Ford 4000 and see what happens!

 

[billboy 1]

I am tending to think that 1st wheat followed by a break then back to 1st wheat doesnt help. I'm really hoping that a 2yr grass ley in the rotation, and putting wheat perhaps more like one year in 6 will work well. My field of wheat last year was its first in 6 years and that worked very well

I've just come out of a 2 year grass ley into wheat and the bg was just as bad as before !

 

[turbo]

I'm coming to the conclusion that 100% control of blackgrass is nether achievable or affordable but keeping it down to levels that won't affect yields is the only way to go.

 

[dgb]

Have a client with a serious problem, we've put the zerotill system in last autumn, and changing the rotation for this coming year.

Wheat, Barley, OSR, Grass, Grass, Winter Beans, Wheat. IF and thats a big IF by the time we've been though barley, rape and one year of hay/grazing grass we've got the blackgrass out we may grass seed the second year it all depends. If not put the cows on it!

 

[willy]

Did any one see the swedish drill in the farmers weekly abot 6 weeks ago.

Wide spacing and tben doubles as an inter row harrow. I think it was called something like cameo?

I i thought it was good