Avoiding Brown Earth

[franklin]

There are now a lot of threads about cover crops and I think it is something that even non-DD farmers could use. I seem to remember an article a few years ago about a French farmer who always had a crop growing (cant find it now) and thought it sounded like madness. But seeing how wet land was after a dessicated crop of winter barley last year, compared to land that had a crop cut green - grass, maize, beet - I have started to look at ways this could work for me.

The first thing I am going try is to undersow my crop of winter barley with grass which will stay in situ over the winter and into spring when it will get cropped or perhaps even cut then drilled with maize or beet.

I wondered if any of you using cover crops are establishing them while the existing crop is still in the field? I can autocast small seeds or drill after the crop is cut but sat in the cab today I thought that this is wasting quite a lot of good growing time. I appreciate it would limit me to crops that can be broadcast and I reckoned that I could apply the grass while spraying the 2nd fungicde or perhaps even the first fungicide.

Is this achieveable without a stripper header? I dont want green through the combine, but dont mind leaving 8" of stubble and chopping the straw over the established grass and letting it grow through.

Is this madness? I am keen to avoid any brassicas on this land btw.

 

[Andy Howard]

broadcasting is risky. We did into wheat this year, it sat there in the dry and did not chit until rain a few weeks later and now is no further ahead than our drilled cover crops and is thinner. I think it is possible but you need to accept it may be a complete failure sometimes. If you master it then can you let me know!