Black grass 24

[Badshot]

Well I count myself lucky that it's almost gone , but the little that there is seems to have been late out of the blocks this year.

Certainly the extase outpaced it to ear emergence, it's only odds n sods but one or two tiller plants still return seed so I've been busy spot spraying them out this week.

The mayflower seems vigorous enough to smother to a certain extent too.

How has it been for you all this year?

 

[teslacoils]

Bloody awful. If I'd the £££ it would all be roundupped. Back to square one. And it's still fing raining.

 

[snarling bee]

Thanks to ploughing a large area last autumn, late drilling and moisture for pre em our BG this year is not bad. However I’m not sure the late drilling is sustainable so we will keep on ploughing

 

[Badshot]

Thanks to ploughing a large area last autumn, late drilling and moisture for pre em our BG this year is not bad. However I’m not sure the late drilling is sustainable so we will keep on ploughing

Don't you think you'll just plough up problems if you start ploughing regularly?

We had plenty of BG when we ploughed every year, and it only got worse with mine till.

BUT I wasn't so pedantic about getting the stragglers that were surviving the chems. This seems key.

 

[Jon 3085]

Bloody awful. If I'd the £££ it would all be roundupped. Back to square one. And it's still fing raining.

worst year ever here on some black soil,sprayed some out but should have done more

 

[teslacoils]

worst year ever here on some black soil,sprayed some out but should have done more

Honestly, I simply can't afford to spray any more off.

 

[farmbrew]

'Luckily' the heavier land here, more prone to blackgrass, didn't get drilled this year...that is having a fallow year and a clean up.
The lighter land had way more than normal, mid October drilled after potatoes and no grass weed control until way into spring.
Have rogued 3 times already and will certainly go again.
I used to plough annually and was losing the battle.
Rotational ploughing seems better with disciplined rogue or glypho.
As near to zero tolerance as possible

 

[snarling bee]

Don't you think you'll just plough up problems if you start ploughing regularly?

We had plenty of BG when we ploughed every year, and it only got worse with mine till.

BUT I wasn't so pedantic about getting the stragglers that were surviving the chems. This seems key.

Probably yes, but I'm not suggesting I plough every year, probably 25% rotationally. BUT I have ploughed a moderate BG problem 2 years consecutively and the field is almost clean.
In addition I have a worsening issue with meadow brome which is very effectively controlled by ploughing. I have also been very hot on a sterile margin which prevents ingress from field edges. I often go round 2 or 3 x with the quad sprayer to make sure I have not missed anything and also do the corners with a lance. We also spray around in field obstacles every year.

 

[DrWazzock]

Just about roguable this year though I’m kidding myself if I think I’ve got them all. There was no autumn herbicide at all. Something like Pacifica in the spring. We ploughed everything last summer due to weather but I’d say we have brought some seed up. I’d agree about not ploughing every year. Rotational probably better as what’s down decays away more so less viable seed gets turned back up.
Sheep and grass in the rotation keeps a lid on it.
There is no easy answer. Pull up one big plant with many many tillers and lots of seed in each head and it’s not difficult to see how it multiplies incredibly quickly.

 

[masseyjack]

Our blackgrass control is pretty good the worst is where it only got avadex as a pre em without the liberator and pendimethalin that the rest got.

Regular ploughing seems to keep it at a manageable level, ploughed and pressed early and then leaving it to green up is the best way and buys you quite a lot of flexibility if its ploughed dry. It seems to me that when you plough the blackgrass seed back up you have broken the dormancy of a lot of it, hence why leaving it to green up and be sprayed off works a lot better than ploughing and drilling tight behind in my experience.

 

[ajd132]

Good control where crop established well and didn’t get herbicide damage by the October rain, bad control where the crop was thin and poor over winter due to being drilled later and exposing the herbicide to the big dump of rain.
Every year is different though and where it’s bad we probably shouldn’t have been putting a second wheat in anyway.

 

[Green oak]

We have too be thankful we have fulfenacet as an active. Some of the misses around poles I’ve seen are poisoned with black grass. If fulfenacet gets banned we may aswel give up farming.

 

[Luke Cropwalker]

We have too be thankful we have fulfenacet as an active. Some of the misses around poles I’ve seen are poisoned with black grass. If fulfenacet gets banned we may aswel give up farming.

We may well loose flufenacet in a few years, it has been flagged up as potential endocrine disruptor.

 

[teslacoils]

Without flufenscet we will be 100 percent stewardship.

 

[Hindsight]

Without flufenscet we will be 100 percent stewardship.

Luximo? Just more expensive!!

 

[yellow belly]

less bg than we have had for years

wheat september drilled full stack with flufenecet and avadex
with the likely loss of fct in 3 years i am now going to use it and not use luximo till fct is gone this i expect will not put any selection pressure on it

all drilled no till

spring crops planted late due to weather so very little bg except where there are moleing lines
soil disturbance promotes bg to germinate leaving it undisturbed reduces germination

levels of bg have been falling year on year for the last 5 years
notill since 2012

i do not plan to drill any autumn crops in fields that have medium or high bg levels
delayed autumn planting after october 2nd is a non starter here and leads to poor establishment poor prem effectiveness and high seed return

 

[HarryB97]

Mixed bag here. Wheat after grass looks a picture and some of the best I’ve seen anywhere. Have a field of wheat which was after 3 years grass and then spring oats which is disappointingly dirty I have topped 20% of it. Some spring barley is clean with small plants in the bottom with no ears on and some where I had a patchy kill with roundup are a bit of a mess!

 

[DrWazzock]

I’m just about knackered trying to rogue the damn stuff out. In a bad patch now. Some of the plants are as big a diameter as a pint glass full of tillers with seed heads. It’s beyond carrying them off in a bag. I’ll need the tractor and transport box round the outside tramline tomorrow to collect them all. Fed up. It’s always much worse in the really heavy bits where the ploughing goes badly and can’t bury the trash properly. That tells me a lot. Considering we used no autumn herbicide at all as we just couldn’t get on, it’s not a complete disaster. Without OSR as a break I really do wonder what the future holds not that it ever seemed to get us clean. If flufenacet goes that’s the end of cereals here as well, no doubt about it.

 

[farmbrew]

I know how you feel, disheartening to say the least when you get a bad bit.
I try not to look up too much and do it in metre strips, back and forth.
Carry to headllands then collect with jcb and bucket or quad bike and box.
So satisfying though when next time through just a few stragglers to pick up.
Worse bits mow and roundup...keep it up cos doesn't get better on its own as you well know

 

[deleted user 837354]

Driving around I have definitely seen some dirty crops in places I'd least expect to see them. I'm glad I'm not involved in it any more, a season like that would put me onto the back foot for months.