Black grass 2021

[ajd132]

Then they will remember why they were supposed to late drill... nothing has changed.

Green on green spraying tech is coming soon which could help on lower populations.

 

[Flat 10]

Yes, Spring Beans can be a bad crop for encouraging Blackgrass. We have lost so many of the pre-em sprays we were able to use. But even they didn’t work if it was very dry after it was put on.

If it turns wet later, this more open crop lets BG get a hold, despite the fact that it is a Spring crop.
BG will germinate 365 days a year if it is wet enough.
IMO Blackgrass just adapts itself to any conditions, even later drilling.
Trying to get the balance right as to drilling later to reduce it, whilst having a crop good enough that can out-compete it is a dilemma.


The theory of being able to drill earlier if we No-till is a huge encouragement to me to want to move towards this system.
However, I have experienced a problem on 3 of my very heaviest fields this year that I No-till drilled 5 days and then put its full pre-em spray plus Avadex on before Storm Alex, that first weekend in October 2020. The sprays found their way into the seed slot and severely stunted it.
But I’m amazed how well 90% of it recovered in the Spring. And there is no BG in any of it.

The 10% I patched on with Spring wheat has not germinated well because of the drought. These fields followed Spring Oats, put in after a CSFB failed Rape crop. After it eventually rained on those Spring Oats, we got a flush of Fat Hen.
After the recent rains this year, the seed from that Fat Hen is now causing huge problems in the at-last germinating Spring wheat!
It looks like it is coming up in the rows that the Spring Wheat was planted in.
The only Herbicide we can find that will hopefully kill it without damaging the surviving Winter wheat is Zypar.

At least there isn’t any Blackgrass on these fields, but I will need to press the “Reset Button” on these fields and plough them this Autumn ahead of planting Hybrid Winter Barley, if nothing else to bury the Fan Hen seeds.


I’m pleased to say though that all my No-tilled crops of my less heavy, medium and lighter land fields is looking great!
Infinitely better that those around us that conventionally drilled later and look an even worse “Patchwork” of crop and bald patches, than those very heavy 3 fields of mine.

Is it too late for a whiff of MCPA some of the cutoffs have been pushed back and you would only need a litre or so

 

[Two Tone]

Is it too late for a whiff of MCPA some of the cutoffs have been pushed back and you would only need a litre or so

Yes, we reckon it is too late. Flag Leaf visible. We’ve seen all sorts of distorted ears using MCPA this late.

 

[Flat 10]

Yes, we reckon it is too late. Leaf 5 visible. We’ve seen all sorts of distorted ears using MCPA this late.

Leaf 5? Larke cleared to gs 39

 

[Two Tone]

Leaf 5? Larke cleared to gs 39

Edited to Flag Leaf just to save the confusion, thank you.
Funnily enough, I was using Depitox on grassland recently. But we think it too risky of the Winter Wheat in question because we may lose the Spring Wheat amongst it (or it won't be much cop anyway!) and want to be as safe as possible to that remaining Winter Wheat.
Being Extase, it hasn't had any fungicide yet and we want to combine a one hit Fungicide with the Zypar and some Marriphite stimulant is one go, then shut the gate on it if possible.

It would be much easier if the Winter and Spring wheat areas were in defined areas rather than a patchwork across the field. Unfortunately they are not.

The Fat Hen is a legacy of the wet spell just before harvesting the Spring Oats. Those Spring Oats were one of our first attempts at No-till. Had the Rape not have suffered from CSFB, that got replaced by the Oats, I'd never have tried No-till.

The dilemma being: Either our demise of OSR is still haunting us OR every cloud has a silver lining, resulting in our conversion towards No-till. I can't decide which way round it actually is yet!

One thing is for sure though: I won't be in any hurry to grow Spring Oats again.

 

[Dog]

or

might have a customer for it if I whole crop it. It’s a good thick crop, about 2 and a half foot tall. Flag leaf will be fully out in a week. Anyone had any experience of how many 4ft round bales it would do to the acre. How long can you leave it till the seeds become viable.

 

[teslacoils]

Cut before head is flowering in the middle ideally. If your baling / wrapping / silaging fairly soon after mowing, then can stretch this out because the seeds won't shake out.

And if your well on it, could potentially get a crop of maize, linseed, or ryegrass put straight in.

 

[Humble Village Farmer]

Edited to Flag Leaf just to save the confusion, thank you.
Funnily enough, I was using Depitox on grassland recently. But we think it too risky of the Winter Wheat in question because we may lose the Spring Wheat amongst it (or it won't be much cop anyway!) and want to be as safe as possible to that remaining Winter Wheat.
Being Extase, it hasn't had any fungicide yet and we want to combine a one hit Fungicide with the Zypar and some Marriphite stimulant is one go, then shut the gate on it if possible.

It would be much easier if the Winter and Spring wheat areas were in defined areas rather than a patchwork across the field. Unfortunately they are not.

The Fat Hen is a legacy of the wet spell just before harvesting the Spring Oats. Those Spring Oats were one of our first attempts at No-till. Had the Rape not have suffered from CSFB, that got replaced by the Oats, I'd never have tried No-till.

The dilemma being: Either our demise of OSR is still haunting us OR every cloud has a silver lining, resulting in our conversion towards No-till. I can't decide which way round it actually is yet!

One thing is for sure though: I won't be in any hurry to grow Spring Oats again.

I have found spring oats to be a very reliable crop for direct drilling and is very good at suppressing blackgrass. My advice would be to give it another go on a small area. Otherwise it is a really good cover crop component if you decide to do some of that.

 

[willy]

Green on green spraying tech is coming soon which could help on lower populations.

What do uou mean by green on green?

 

[B'o'B]

What do uou mean by green on green?

Spotting black grass in a growing crop to spot treat or precision mechanical weed.

 

[ajd132]

What do uou mean by green on green?

Detecting weeds in crops and and giving them the correct dose.
Imagine the chemical savings when using axial for wild oats rather than just blanket spraying the whole field.
If BG pops were reasonably low, but more than rogueable and a shot of high dose glyphosate in crop could really make big gains in stopping seed return. Obviously no good if you have a meadow of BG though

 

[JCfarmer]

That is a very interesting question:

On the farm that I manage, the owner would have an absolute fit if he saw that I had Roundup'ed off a growing crop. Especially at today's grain prices.

I've mentioned before that this farm in most years, does not particularly lend itself to growing Spring Crops.
Also that it was the use of Min-till that wrecked this farm by causing an explosion in Blackgrass and it took a return to well set up ploughing to get it back under control.
Blackgrass was so bad, that on 3 fields in 2013, the wheat yielded less than 1 tonne/ha (not acre!), despite chucking everything including the kitchen sink at it!

I managed to get BG back under control, but without EVER having to destroy a crop. Hybrid Winter Barley in the rotation as well as the plough helped me do this.

So much so, that we are now converting Zero-till and have seen no increase in Blackgrass so far.
I just hope we aren't seeing beginner's luck!
I am reasonably confident so far that it does work over a lot of the farm. And that hopefully, the rest of the farm will follow shortly.

Strangely enough, I've been doing our Management Accounts this week, comparing this year's (3/4 Zero-till) to the previous year (all ploughing).
I cannot believe the enormous savings in fuel and steel it shows! No extra variable cost requirements either.
I am seriously thinking about buying my own hedge-cutter to give me something to do instead of the hours I spent ploughing!

you could even leave the tractor and hedgecutter in the field so the chap on grain cart can cut round the edge while he's waiting for you to fill the grain trailer.

 

[Jon 3085]

Sorted out some black grass

 

[Nick.]

Sorted out some black grass View attachment 963768

I did that about 4 years ago. Looked horrendous. But I’m bloody glad I did. We just go through with a knapsack and spot spray any surviving plants. I also carry a little 2L sprayer full of glyphosate when I’m spraying. It’s amazing how many BG plants spring up on the tram lines.

 

[jimcooke770]

We were out spot spraying BG yesterday when my sister rang . She works at the local university. She was deeply shocked when I told her what we were doing ....
It's " Grass of Colour " surely ..!

 

[JCfarmer]

We were out spot spraying BG yesterday when my sister rang . She works at the local university. She was deeply shocked when I told her what we were doing ....
It's " Grass of Colour " surely ..!

What would she think if you were spraying off weed?

 

[robs1]

More here than for a good few years and looking at nearby fields the same even those that have been in maize several years now has it appearing over the wheat

 

[Northern territory]

Blackgrass is here to stay I’m afraid. Talk of flufenacet maximum doses being reduced won’t help the situation.

 

[teslacoils]

Blackgrass is here to stay I’m afraid. Talk of flufenacet maximum doses being reduced won’t help the situation.

No, that will mess it up.

 

[Castlemaine]

I feel like Israel’s iron dome , spray a load off then a few days later more appear, some wheat has been sacrificed