- Location
- Lincolnshire
BG loves wheat. However, so does my bank account.
Back to minimum tillage ?
- Thread starter Smithjamesjohn
- Start date
- Location
- Suffolk
After all that effort you still have that level of BG? Aren't you better to accept an "economic level" of BG and grown a good margin?
Our best margin for last 2 years has been winter barley by quite some way. (performs well in dry springs and huge malting premiums)
We stopped growing winter barley for malting when the premiums were £10/t, Are they normally good now or was it just a reflection of general malting premiums being excellent these last few years? I can't get WB margins to come close to SB 4 years out of 5 I'd say.
- Location
- Near Colchester
We grind all our cereals for the pigs - no malting premium, no rt.
- Location
- Lincolnshire
I like barley but it needs to get decent sized in autumn here to do well. I've also had many a sleepless night with herbicides and heavy rain on big crops. Always comes fine but no good for the stress.
- Location
- Bury St Edmunds
Craft or Electum?
- Location
- Bedfordshire
I've farmed 9 tonne land go to 12 tonne land with plenty of compost. Now reverting to 10 tonne land with compost 1 yr in 3 or 4.
Big improvement in yield consistency where we have applied compost at home.
We now mix compost with pig FYM which improves spreadablity of compost and takes the smell out of the pig muck.
- Location
- Bedfordshire
Most break crops don't help the fight either.
I am considering moving to a rotation of continuous wheat until BG gets too bad, then a spring wheat, then bare fallow, back into WW.
- Location
- Suffolk
Electrum
- Location
- Lincolnshire
My worst bg this year is after fallow. Which is a shame as it's a bloody good block of wheat.
Even growing wheat one year in seven, it's got to have the kitchen sink.
I'm even looking at beans. Sigh.
- Location
- Lincolnshire
Proclus has done well. The error was thinking it had done well enough not to top up the flufenacet.
Snap
- Location
- Suffolk
Will be proclus here this autumn (following "the yellow issue" we spoke about)
Avadex always does a grand job for us... probably because we haven't used much over the years and because we apply it with the rolls so it always get the best seedbeds and pre-ems work better behind.
- Location
- Lincolnshire
My aim always with autumn is to drill late enough and apply enough ffu to get the crop into spring. So it's a juggle between cold weather, moisture etc. This year I thought I'd gone late enough that the standard liberator rate was enough. In reality, I should have gone again while drilling the really late wheat.
So the Proclus has gone in the "useful, but not as vital as the extra half dose of liberator" box. I'd use it in preference to avadex.
The late drilled stuff is very clean, but seed rate too low for great yield.
Still, every day a school day.
- Location
- Lincolnshire.
Well reliance on flufenacet is means later drilling IMO. I definitely won’t be September drilling anytime soon. The rest of the Chemicals do something but the core of the program is two applications of ffct. I don’t use Avadex because it’s no better than other cheaper partners. We grow two wheats break on land where bg is endemic. I have been managing bg all my farming career, others can say what they like but IMO the mouldboard plough is integral to our system. The one thing I won’t be doing is adopting mintill on anything other than an advocate basis.
I’m thinking September drill, big strong crops, inter row hoeing and a flexible rotation. Low fixed costs mean stuff like spring oats are profitable. I’ve said it before but late drilling on our soil type has cost us a lot more than some visual blackgrass in an early drilled wheat. As long as you don’t get greedy and Try to push an another wheat where it should really be a spring crop it’s fine. Slopping around at the back end of October worked well for us one year, but perfect conditions. More often than not you either can’t drill or you compromise because establishment is not good enough, and then the grass comes anyway because the crop isn’t good enough. Quite the conundrum.
- Location
- Lincolnshire
In the same way that direct drillers need big capacity to go when conditions allow, the same is equal for heavy land drillers. My late drilled wheat looked shocking but now quite decent, despite low population. I'm flexible enough now that if it won't go I'll just leave it until spring.
The bg levels here won't hit yield but will make me sad and force a change away from my simple system.
In reality, I've only two days drilling to do the farm. So a mid October start is the aim.
Overly aggressive early season pgr also seems to favour the bg. Although that's anecdotal.
The bg levels here won't hit yield but will make me sad and force a change away from my simple system.
In reality, I've only two days drilling to do the farm. So a mid October start is the aim.
Overly aggressive early season pgr also seems to favour the bg. Although that's anecdotal.
What’s your thoughts on the PGR? Sounds interesting.
Our technique last few years is to drill all the first wheat and winter barley in September. Then if there’s opportunities in October to do second wheat with more BG pressure then we will. Leaving it all late is horrifyingly risky in my opinion.
Our customers and agents have now realised this. They would rather have wheat in the ground and the possibility of some superficial blackgrass, than trying to achieve perfection on blackgrass by late drilling and getting nothing drilled at all. Took a while to get to that point of understanding with some though!
Our customers and agents have now realised this. They would rather have wheat in the ground and the possibility of some superficial blackgrass, than trying to achieve perfection on blackgrass by late drilling and getting nothing drilled at all. Took a while to get to that point of understanding with some though!