Blackgrass chemical attack

T Hectares

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Berkshire
The reason I asked about chemical approach is because cultural control doesn’t work. I’ve a 60 acre field that was bad BG in its last winter wheat crop in 2014. Since then it’s been in spring cropping exclusively bar one crop of winter rye. In all the spring crops BG was not an issue mostly. There was one spring wheat where it appeared in July in places but still then it wasn’t bad. In winter rye you couldn’t find a BG plant basically. Coupled to this it’s been in DD with either a Weaving disc drill or a JD 750 a couple of times. It’s not seen a plough for 12 years.

It’s also had various cover crops in between spring crops. Sometimes a simple mustard cover or at times a more expensive mix with phaeclia and raddish etc but always direct drilled.

So I thought we’d cracked it hence putting it back into winter wheat this last autumn. Now, we haven’t done enough chemical wise but take a look at this picture. There’s more appearing by the day to the point I’m considering silaging it because next year it’s going to be worse.

So exclusive spring cropping, direct drilling, cover cropping and repetitive use of glyphosate for 8 years hasn’t worked and its back with a vengeance.

As for the Triton then it drilled the last spring crop and we had no issues so no as it’s not working at plough depth to bring it up. I run it set mostly for minimal disturbance rather than shattering.
Wheat is the problem
Spring crops help but they won’t get rid of BG, they help control by having a larger window to glypho out of crop, SB in particular is competitive but as soon as Wheat is grown there can be no easing up on the Pre ems because the previous crop was clean, it’s still there !!
If the spring crops are clean then at least you are not adding to the problem by returning more seed, clean crops are the first big step to tackling the problem but the seed bank will still be huge
I’ve reduced the herb spend in SB, OSR and W Beans over the last few years but the Wheat has to be kept at the same max pre em as any slip up will allow it straight back in
 

Neddy flanders

Member
BASE UK Member
@warksfarmer alot of my wheat looks worse than your picture and i spent well over £120/ha on chems. makes me laugh when i see someone saying if they spot a BG plant on their farm, theyll roundup it out with a Knapsack.... not an option here.
still possible to get a decent yield with a low BG population.
not sure where i go next. dont want to go back to November drilling as impossible with DD, but possibly the only way.
 

B'o'B

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Rutland
@warksfarmer alot of my wheat looks worse than your picture and i spent well over £120/ha on chems. makes me laugh when i see someone saying if they spot a BG plant on their farm, theyll roundup it out with a Knapsack.... not an option here.
still possible to get a decent yield with a low BG population.
not sure where i go next. dont want to go back to November drilling as impossible with DD, but possibly the only way.
Granted there does come a point where my approach no longer work, but I am spending £85-90/Ha less than you on BG chemistry which pays for a lot of my time rogueing and a big area of crop destruction before I’m worse off. While it’s doable I intend to keep on doing it, I enjoy my time walking the fields which helps.
It also means I’m not afraid of 2nd or even 3rd wheats from a grass weed POV which helps with the lack of decent brake crops ATM.
 

ajd132

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Suffolk
Wheat is the problem
Spring crops help but they won’t get rid of BG, they help control by having a larger window to glypho out of crop, SB in particular is competitive but as soon as Wheat is grown there can be no easing up on the Pre ems because the previous crop was clean, it’s still there !!
If the spring crops are clean then at least you are not adding to the problem by returning more seed, clean crops are the first big step to tackling the problem but the seed bank will still be huge
I’ve reduced the herb spend in SB, OSR and W Beans over the last few years but the Wheat has to be kept at the same max pre em as any slip up will allow it straight back in
This is absolutely spot on. Wheat is the weak link. We have to accept some blackgrass is not a problem aslong as we keep the rotation up. Gone are the days of absolute perfection.
 

Brisel

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Midlands
The reason I asked about chemical approach is because cultural control doesn’t work. I’ve a 60 acre field that was bad BG in its last winter wheat crop in 2014. Since then it’s been in spring cropping exclusively bar one crop of winter rye. In all the spring crops BG was not an issue mostly. There was one spring wheat where it appeared in July in places but still then it wasn’t bad. In winter rye you couldn’t find a BG plant basically. Coupled to this it’s been in DD with either a Weaving disc drill or a JD 750 a couple of times. It’s not seen a plough for 12 years.

It’s also had various cover crops in between spring crops. Sometimes a simple mustard cover or at times a more expensive mix with phaeclia and raddish etc but always direct drilled.

So I thought we’d cracked it hence putting it back into winter wheat this last autumn. Now, we haven’t done enough chemical wise but take a look at this picture. There’s more appearing by the day to the point I’m considering silaging it because next year it’s going to be worse.

So exclusive spring cropping, direct drilling, cover cropping and repetitive use of glyphosate for 8 years hasn’t worked and its back with a vengeance.

As for the Triton then it drilled the last spring crop and we had no issues so no as it’s not working at plough depth to bring it up. I run it set mostly for minimal disturbance rather than shattering.
Drilled last week October. Glyphosate and defy.

Don‘t take this personally, but you really haven’t thought this through. Cultural controls don’t work? Is a pre em of glyphosate and Defy your ideal cocktail?

The only way that you will beat blackgrass back is a combination of strategies that includes both cultural and chemical controls. Not all one method eg. spring cropping, but an array of tools. Is your agronomist still a chap who posts in TFF? Do you do as they say or just do what you think is right?
 

T Hectares

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Berkshire
This is absolutely spot on. Wheat is the weak link. We have to accept some blackgrass is not a problem aslong as we keep the rotation up. Gone are the days of absolute perfection.
Wheats the most profitable and the weak link, it’s all a balance between staying in profit and putting measures in for the rest of the rotation
Some of my worst fields have grown Wheat once in six to seven years but it’s not so bad for me as SB is a fairly decent margin here
I’m going in the right direction but if there’s a problem then I’ll react to it
I’ve a few fields of Wheat that aren’t as clean as I’d like, but they are better than they were when last in wheat so that’s good
If we could replicate autumn ‘18 every year then things would be a lot easier, it’s been a compromise both years since !!
 

T Hectares

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Berkshire
Don‘t take this personally, but you really haven’t thought this through. Cultural controls don’t work? Is a pre em of glyphosate and Defy your ideal cocktail?

The only way that you will beat blackgrass back is a combination of strategies that includes both cultural and chemical controls. Not all one method eg. spring cropping, but an array of tools. Is your agronomist still a chap who posts in TFF? Do you do as they say or just do what you think is right?
Defy is the last thing I’ve added to a stack in the worst situations
To rely on it alone would be akin to BG suicide!!
Going forward, losing Crawler and less OSR/kerb will mean more cereals and an even tougher job with BG
It’s not getting any easier...
 

ajd132

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Suffolk
Wheats the most profitable and the weak link, it’s all a balance between staying in profit and putting measures in for the rest of the rotation
Some of my worst fields have grown Wheat once in six to seven years but it’s not so bad for me as SB is a fairly decent margin here
I’m going in the right direction but if there’s a problem then I’ll react to it
I’ve a few fields of Wheat that aren’t as clean as I’d like, but they are better than they were when last in wheat so that’s good
If we could replicate autumn ‘18 every year then things would be a lot easier, it’s been a compromise both years since !!
We are the same. I have A couple of bad patches but generally it’s not too bad and is manageable. Driving around this area is shocking, I have never seen such rampant BG. We simply cannot grow the wheat dominated rotations of the past and we need much lower overheads to make lower output systems profitable.
 

Hindsight

Member
Location
Lincolnshire
Aren't we in the dark on the matter of control and monitoring of the seed bank within the soil profile ?

I've heard about seeds "Rotting" in the ground year on year. But if there are Billions of seeds in the soil wating to germinate how long is a 40% year on year reduction going to take to create control if ever ?

Is there any established demonstrable science which shows and documents seed reduction ?

Seems as though we are all walking in the dark hoping we are heading in the right direction whilst HMG pulls the rug from under out feet.

We need to understand where we are.

There is 60 years of excellent research on grassweeds in UK. Starting with the Weed Research Organization (WRO) through to current day with likes of NIABTAG. Publicly funded in initial year. Co funded latterly.

WRO was even debated in Parliament when that brutal government of Thatcher chopped away at publicly funded research, leading to closure of several research institutes.


All data published and HGCA followed by successor AHDB has endeavored to convey this information to farmers and the industry in general.

So where have you been for those 60 years my friend if you have missed seeing any reference to the research.
 

T Hectares

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Berkshire
This sort of debate comes around all the time on TFF.

It goes like this:

Drill late as peak germination is in September.
People then get rained off like 2019 and have no crop.
So they justify drilling early the following year because of "perfect condition" and "don't want be a mauling it in"
And don't forget that the difference between Wheat and Barley is large so more Wheat and particularly 2nd and 3rd wheats go in…
 

ajd132

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Suffolk
This sort of debate comes around all the time on TFF.

It goes like this:

Drill late as peak germination is in September.
People then get rained off like 2019 and have no crop.
So they justify drilling early the following year because of "perfect condition" and "don't want be a mauling it in"
I have a landowner who has demanded I drill mid September so I don’t maul it in and it yields more but also within the same sentence said I have to create a stale seed bed and get a flush of blackgrass before I drill, whilst also saying late drilling is terrible but also saying what a good job the neighbours have done at clearing up blackgrass, I pointed out they have been drilling in November!
 
I have a landowner who has demanded I drill mid September so I don’t maul it in and it yields more but also within the same sentence said I have to create a stale seed bed and get a flush of blackgrass before I drill, whilst also saying late drilling is terrible but also saying what a good job the neighbours have done at clearing up blackgrass, I pointed out they have been drilling in November!

Its tricky but at the end of the day, all weeds are predictable - they are not cunning. The weather is not predictable.

Its rock and hard place.
 

robs1

Member
Its tricky but at the end of the day, all weeds are predictable - they are not cunning. The weather is not predictable.

Its rock and hard place.
I'm not sure that weeds are predictable, while it's only a feeling I think bg is now germinating much later, looking at my crops when putting first n on in feb and over the hedge when driving by others fields bg was nowhere to be seen, now virtually every field you drive past its everywhere, we need a residual that lasts longer into spring.
Bg has adapted by us killing off early germinating plants and we have selected the later ones. Time to try a mid/late jan dose of fft and dff/pdm?
What we are doing is plainly not working.
 

ajd132

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Suffolk
I'm not sure that weeds are predictable, while it's only a feeling I think bg is now germinating much later, looking at my crops when putting first n on in feb and over the hedge when driving by others fields bg was nowhere to be seen, now virtually every field you drive past its everywhere, we need a residual that lasts longer into spring.
Bg has adapted by us killing off early germinating plants and we have selected the later ones. Time to try a mid/late jan dose of fft and dff/pdm?
What we are doing is plainly not working.
I agree I think loads of mine germinated after the residuals had been washed away. Really struggled to find any on no till leans around Christmas but now have a smattering over the osr and one really bad field. Overal we are pretty good though. This area is shockingly bad for it this year
 

robs1

Member
I agree I think loads of mine germinated after the residuals had been washed away. Really struggled to find any on no till leans around Christmas but now have a smattering over the osr and one really bad field. Overal we are pretty good though. This area is shockingly bad for it this year
I have mentioned this before but a few years ago I sprayed a field that had a few steep slopes on it early November, really bad bg wet heavy land drilled the day before golf balled sized seeded, tractor going sideways across the slopes, large ruts but bad forecast and that night at least an inch of rain, I thought the crystal would have all washed away but in april the agronomist rang up to take the pee that I had missed some bits until told him to measure from the ruts where I bailed out on the steep bit as the tractor was starting to get out of control, come harvest there was hardly a bg plant except in the missed bits, I wonder whether the heavy rain washed the crystal down into the profile and killed the later germinating plants rather than sit in the top cm and get degraded.
 

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