Blackgrass trials BASE visit

[Brian]

There was a good disscusion on the price of cover crops, Hutchs seed chap Colin was there and said that getting the right variety of vetch to grow over here was a bit trial and error at the moment and there appeared to a premium charged to UK buyers compared to what French farmers are paying! This is mainly down to volume of sales he reckoned and if a big enough order could be got together then the price to UK farmers would come down.

 

[Brian]

Don't suppose they said when the latest you could spray black-grass with round-up to ensure no viable seeds? Have been having an argument about this question recently.

It was only a small couple of plots they had tried and we were told not to draw too many conclusions just yet. Can't remeber when they sprayed exactly I'm afraid

 

[York]

just a brief report of a field of my friends. Has it now the 2nd season. Was covered with Black Grass when he took it over. Question was: what to do?
I aid: soil samples 1st, than we will see. Result: Big ca, low Mg.
Question: Mg is tooo costly for the yield potential, which is 5 to 6 t/ha Wheat, under this circumstances. Also farmer hates strong chemestry.
so, this is what we did:
1st year: Maize: drilled with Mg with the fertiliser
2nd year: wheat: full dose of recommended Mg.
How it looks? little Black Grass, does hardly tiller, not tall, less then 20 cm high. Neighbours you don't see the wheat in the black grass.
We will see. It's the 1st time in 10 years I'm "eating the ear of the farmer" to put on Mg. Now we had a Mg supply which was 30% below the normal stuff, so it was easier.
Question remains for me the hot one: how much Mg can cost when it helps to get the Black Grass out of the problem zone?
Other crop, same question: with herbicide cost in Sugar Beet approaching 300 €/ha 1st people are not only thinking about going back to band spraying and harrowing.
York-Th.

 

[York]

There was a good disscusion on the price of cover crops, Hutchs seed chap Colin was there and said that getting the right variety of vetch to grow over here was a bit trial and error at the moment and there appeared to a premium charged to UK buyers compared to what French farmers are paying! This is mainly down to volume of sales he reckoned and if a big enough order could be got together then the price to UK farmers would come down.

Sorry, normal bulls..ting from sales person. What is a big order? Reckon that 1 truck load is not a big order as I expect 1 truck load spread amo0ungs TFF readers is just not more than a brief sniff.
Point is that even for the French the cost will go up as demand is increasing and due to the profitability of cash crops the area increase for cover crop production isn't in balance to demand development.
Also, if there is no competition. times for high prices in D. are over as now every one is having cover crop seed.
York-Th.

 

[dontknowanything]

I thought it was very interesting indeed.

Re fallow, the view seemed to be that you needed two autumn flushes to make it worthwhile, so a year of fallow going into a spring crop

 

[Fred]

just a brief report of a field of my friends. Has it now the 2nd season. Was covered with Black Grass when he took it over. Question was: what to do?
I aid: soil samples 1st, than we will see. Result: Big ca, low Mg.
Question: Mg is tooo costly for the yield potential, which is 5 to 6 t/ha Wheat, under this circumstances. Also farmer hates strong chemestry.
so, this is what we did:
1st year: Maize: drilled with Mg with the fertiliser
2nd year: wheat: full dose of recommended Mg.
How it looks? little Black Grass, does hardly tiller, not tall, less then 20 cm high. Neighbours you don't see the wheat in the black grass.
We will see. It's the 1st time in 10 years I'm "eating the ear of the farmer" to put on Mg. Now we had a Mg supply which was 30% below the normal stuff, so it was easier.
Question remains for me the hot one: how much Mg can cost when it helps to get the Black Grass out of the problem zone?
Other crop, same question: with herbicide cost in Sugar Beet approaching 300 €/ha 1st people are not only thinking about going back to band spraying and harrowing.
York-Th.

Wooah back up there big fella,

Forgive me , but to put magnesium on to a soil that has black grass, surely black grass is a marsh plant that likes tight soils , yet by putting on mg you say that the black grass pressure is lower , when we would think that mg would make soil tighter,

Please explain ,

 

[York]

Fred,
I'm just a observer and shring what we see. I will share year 3 as well.
I have my theory, and have talked a lot with others about it. It took 10 years to get the farmer doing a little = follow the priority list from the top. Now let's see if our observation is stable the next years. We have a saying: "A single Swallow doesn't make the summer". Just let's be paitient.
York-Th.

 

[Feldspar]

Fred,
I'm just a observer and shring what we see. I will share year 3 as well.
I have my theory, and have talked a lot with others about it. It took 10 years to get the farmer doing a little = follow the priority list from the top. Now let's see if our observation is stable the next years. We have a saying: "A single Swallow doesn't make the summer". Just let's be paitient.
York-Th.

To continue this debate, have a look at this study:

http://www.cabdirect.org/abstracts/20013118440.html

Here they seem to find a significant positive correlation between available Mg and black grass populations which would seem to conflict with your observations. A way to marry the two findings might be a suggestion that there is a "sweet spot" in the amounts of available Mg that black grass likes and as one moves away from this region the problem lessens. I can't get hold of the full paper to get a more detailed look at the nature of the correlation.

Interesting that they too feel there is a link. Question is whether the correlation occurs because of magnesium's effect on the physical nature of the soil or rather whether it is a direct nutrient effect.

 

[York]

To continue this debate, have a look at this study:

http://www.cabdirect.org/abstracts/20013118440.html

Here they seem to find a significant positive correlation between available Mg and black grass populations which would seem to conflict with your observations. A way to marry the two findings might be a suggestion that there is a "sweet spot" in the amounts of available Mg that black grass likes and as one moves away from this region the problem lessens. I can't get hold of the full paper to get a more detailed look at the nature of the correlation.

Interesting that they too feel there is a link. Question is whether the correlation occurs because of magnesium's effect on the physical nature of the soil or rather whether it is a direct nutrient effect.

Hello James,
not at al. It is conflicting when the study is using the same way of soil samples analysis.
Stan dart local results often show high Mg indicies, but this doesn't correlate with tissue sample numbers. So when Mg is applied plants change.
I don't know, but it seems that our plants can't read so they are just ignorant that they should get the Mg., or is the mg hiding?
York-Th.

 

[Feldspar]

So, if you have a soil with a Ca:Mg ratio of say 68:12 and another different soil with a 40:27 ratio, for example, (where the standard index system would place the second soil as having a greater degree of "available" Mg), you would say that it is actually first soil that has more Mg that the plant can use. Assuming I represent your view correctly I have this question: If you added a lot of kieserite to both soils would you guess that the black grass numbers would get worse or better in each soil? What about the black grass numbers if a lot of kieserite was added to a 92:2 soil like in East Anglia?

What concerns me is that if the standard way of measuring "available" was irrelevant to plants then one would not expect to see any correlation between Mg index and black grass numbers. The fact that they did observe a correlation would seem to suggest that plants are actually taking notice of the "available" Mg as the researchers measured it.