- Location
- Lincolnshire
You're on top of RRR blackgrass on heavy clay so you can drill 4000ac of winter crops including second wheats. So....what's the problem?
Personally i dont see the problem. I am being gently persuaded against my better judgement and that of my agronomist to start drilling in early September.
The agronomist said he would like to manage combinable crops and not blackgrass, i agree with him.It has been our strategy for several years.
I do read with interested all your replies to this subject. Surely everybodies farms are different. The farm i work on in sussex which is mainly heavy weald clay we have to drill middle of September. If the weather breaks by the middle of October we are wasting our time otherwise so all these experts who say hold off drilling until middle of october well you come here and have a go this is not boys ground this is mans ground.
Your Blackgrass isnt that bad then, years ago sept drilled around here was down to 1t/ac or preferably sprayed off in march, it was all fine until atlantis stopped working.We have a few heavy clay fields and we have to get them in in September. Even if we have perfect conditions in October it still struggles to grow. The lighter fields we can drill in October but September drilled always yields best.
Anyone advising me to delay drilling because of blackgrass will get pretty short shrift. It might work elsewhere but not here. You never know what the weather will be like in the following week and if I can get on the land then I do so. The seed doesn't grow in the bag.
dont like to point the obvious but maybes the plough might have helped in ways you just cant see.Ploughs are for blocking gateways.
Your Blackgrass isnt that bad then, years ago sept drilled around here was down to 1t/ac or preferably sprayed off in march, it was all fine until atlantis stopped working.
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No it's not, I'm at the stage where I go round with the knapsack sprayer with glyphosate and spray it in May. The nextdoor neighbour's fields are terrible. He was delaying drilling last year and never got any wheat in. It was either spring barley or fallow. He hasn't exactly got a full barn this year but in the long run it might have been for the best. The blackgrass keeps spreading from his fields to mine so it was nice to have a break from it this year.Your Blackgrass isnt that bad then, years ago sept drilled around here was down to 1t/ac or preferably sprayed off in march, it was all fine until atlantis stopped working.
I know that but on our ground you cant cultivate it and leave until mid October because if it turns wet you will not get on it again. It would be nice to have that just works by looking at it but it doesn't.The trick is to cultivate for drilling late, which generally means well dried out and rough, then a drill which goes straight into it.
No , the agronomist is on my side. He wants fields drilled later so that we can manage combinable crops and not crops full of blackgrassI am interested to know how that works?... as most farmers will be... so he thinks you have some magic ability to "supply" him with early sown crops clean of blackgrass... has he been doing this job long?
We ploughed 20years ago and it was too slow, never further away from a seedbed and did not solve any blackgrass problems.We have tried the odd field since and it is not the answer.dont like to point the obvious but maybes the plough might have helped in ways you just cant see.
the Plough is always seen as the bad machine these days, up here is cert has its place & will continue to do so.
Ive got some very well est crops here both with ploughing & heavy stubble cultivation
nothing is DD ive not even considered that route yet.
No BG whatsoever. Deffo need extra agchems on the non ploughed stuff mind.
I know that but on our ground you cant cultivate it and leave until mid October because if it turns wet you will not get on it again. It would be nice to have that just works by looking at it but it doesn't.
Wow, that sounds like my farm thirty years ago, when it had much less humous and ploughing turned up horseheads. Over the last decades growing maize with applications of muck, compost from my neighbour and horse muck from nearby, have made a huge difference to the structure and tilth.The Clay I have is made into clay roof tiles to give you an idea, some fallow land was ploughed in august for contracted vining peas, it was wet and looked real mess, these 16" furrow lumps were up to 1m long and then set like concrete, but it has weathered well (it has to dry out to weather) all autumn I have been wishing it was for wheat, a combi drill would have made a fantastic job. The rest of the farm that was ploughed in 2019 and left fallow for 2020 has gone in really well but where spring crops were planted is now fallow.
We plough most of our cereal land, we sometimes min till but it is always done for a reason related to crop performance or weed control. We always seem to get a reduced yield of Oats after the Sumo type Heva we have or indeed others when I have tried them, this does not surprise me Oats dislike any form of compaction which you inevitably get if you don't move all the soil. Also min till can be a nightmare where you are trying to grow seed crops, with volunteers difficult to control in the autumn.dont like to point the obvious but maybes the plough might have helped in ways you just cant see.
the Plough is always seen as the bad machine these days, up here is cert has its place & will continue to do so.
Ive got some very well est crops here both with ploughing & heavy stubble cultivation
nothing is DD ive not even considered that route yet.
No BG whatsoever. Deffo need extra agchems on the non ploughed stuff mind.
To stop direct/zero till drills getting in?Ploughs are for blocking gateways.
Na! Wet weather does that.To stop direct/zero till drills getting in?