Ben Taylor-Davies black grass talk

[Feldspar]

Everyone knows what to do but it costs too much. Looking at the evidence above 10 oct. is an early drilling date for grassy land yet delaying is potentially costly. Moving away from autumn only rotations is costly.

True. It's a very fine line between delayed drilling and not drilling in the autumn at all due to wet soil. Then you put more wheeling damage in, have to put on more slug pellets, have trouble complying with LERAPs with pre-ems etc, etc. Drilling when you have to wipe lots of mud off your boots when you get in the tractor just feels so much worse than drilling when the days are longer. These fields are a bit of a surprise because they've had spring crops in and had a fallow last year. In hindsight, should not have deep cultivated - that was the mistake.

 

[Brisel]

Deep cultivation is fine, but needs doing early so you’ve got time to exhaust the seed bank through gradually pulling it down with stale seedbeds. I expect you did the deep cultivation because you felt the soil needed it to alleviate any structural problems.

 

[fudge]

Indeed

Largely a fixed cost one .

Been saying for years the issue is winter crops give higher turnover for buffering bloated overheads . Gross margins are a waste of analytical energy on many farms against this elephant in the room

Land cost and land owner expectation of income every year are very difficult to deal with though.

 

[Flat 10]

Monitor is sulfosulfuron. Monolith contains propoxycarbazone sodium which was in Attribut. One or both of these was as persistent as a dose of the clap, though the following crops on the labels are less restrictive now.

Attribut is what I was dreaming of.....
And that was for brome?

 

[SilliamWhale]

Everyone knows what to do but it costs too much. Looking at the evidence above 10 oct. is an early drilling date for grassy land yet delaying is potentially costly. Moving away from autumn only rotations is costly.

It obviously doesn't cost too much though

 

[fudge]

It obviously doesn't cost too much though

Well yes I put that badly.

 

[farmerfred86]

During Ben’s talk he mentioned “WeedSmart”from Australia. Seems like they have a good setup and the website mentions among other things to fight resistance the “double knock”so they never use glyphosate alone. Seems very sensible but sadly cost is driving some of the resistance issues we are creating.

 

[Feldspar]

Rather annoyingly, having walked our two later drilled farms, there is a vexatious amount of black-grass come through the pre-ems. Not a disaster (maybe 2 plants / m2 overall), but considering Atlantis this week. Discussed with agronomist about autumn versus spring application. His response which matches my thinking is, irrespective of why, the autumn Atlantis applications show better control than spring. One reason might be that it's better to on smaller plants even if they're stressed than bigger plants that are less stressed.

 

[farmerfred86]

I saw the same today fieldwalking the only field that didn’t receive avadex. Going to hit it tomorrow with liberator and ethofumisate. Atlantis (as you’ve mentioned it) is an absolute last resort here as it’s nearly resistant but I will only use it in the autum now.
Interestingly the black grass coming through is green and not stressed so using Bens lecture it should take up the liberator?.

 

[Feldspar]

I saw the same today fieldwalking the only field that didn’t receive avadex. Going to hit it tomorrow with liberator and ethofumisate. Atlantis (as you’ve mentioned it) is an absolute last resort here as it’s nearly resistant but I will only use it in the autum now.
Interestingly the black grass coming through is green and not stressed so using Bens lecture it should take up the liberator?.

How much do you reckon the ethofumesate and DFF are going to do at this stage? DFF results from NIAB are for pre-em application and if you've already put some on (say 60g) then another 60g will do nothing. Ethofumesate again is more effective pre-em I believe than post-em (although IIRC no label approval). We did 240g FFCT and Auxiliary as a top up on Avadex + Crystal stack on some bad fields down at Chilton Street last year. Cost £££££ and difficult to be sure, but I think it did a fair amount. Totally unsustainable spend though.

 

[Feldspar]

Anyone know what the generic Pacifica and generic Atlantis are called by the way?

 

[Feldspar]

Deep cultivation is fine, but needs doing early so you’ve got time to exhaust the seed bank through gradually pulling it down with stale seedbeds. I expect you did the deep cultivation because you felt the soil needed it to alleviate any structural problems.

We actually deep cultivated because I was very worried this year about how much we had to drill. We had a larger area to drill this season and I wanted to give myself as wide a drilling window as I could get. Also, these fields had been mole drained across the tramlines and wanted to level out.

 

[Flat 10]

How much do you reckon the ethofumesate and DFF are going to do at this stage? DFF results from NIAB are for pre-em application and if you've already put some on (say 60g) then another 60g will do nothing. Ethofumesate again is more effective pre-em I believe than post-em (although IIRC no label approval). We did 240g FFCT and Auxiliary as a top up on Avadex + Crystal stack on some bad fields down at Chilton Street last year. Cost £££££ and difficult to be sure, but I think it did a fair amount. Totally unsustainable spend though.

Why won’t the DFF add anything post-em? Hamlet is only Atlantis + DFF.......

 

[Feldspar]

Why won’t the DFF add anything post-em? Hamlet is only Atlantis + DFF.......

I said if 60g has already been applied. 120g no more effective than 60g.

 

[jack6480]

Is growing wheat profitable with bad blackgrass or brome?

 

[Flat 10]

I said if 60g has already been applied. 120g no more effective than 60g.

Oh. I wasn’t trying to be smart last time, just interested. So TAG says no advantage to full dose over half? Not what I would have expected.

 

[Feldspar]

Is growing wheat profitable with bad blackgrass or brome?

Some people are paying £100+ ha rent to black-grass (on top of actual rent in some cases). Whether that's the difference between profit or not depends on the grain price!

 

[Neddy flanders]

Rather annoyingly, having walked our two later drilled farms, there is a vexatious amount of black-grass come through the pre-ems. Not a disaster (maybe 2 plants / m2 overall), but considering Atlantis this week. Discussed with agronomist about autumn versus spring application. His response which matches my thinking is, irrespective of why, the autumn Atlantis applications show better control than spring. One reason might be that it's better to on smaller plants even if they're stressed than bigger plants that are less stressed.

When was it drilled?

 

[Brisel]

Is growing wheat profitable with bad blackgrass or brome?

It's certainly not sustainable without a good husbandry system that suits the crops better than it suits the weeds.

 

[shakerator]

Is growing wheat profitable with bad blackgrass or brome?

Yes it can be .
Could be the ultimate heavy land year next year given soil structures atm