ZXR17
Member
- Location
- South Dorset
Who has grown it and how have you got on with it ?
Grown it for 2 years. Not growing it next year. Has paid well, although not as well as advertised. Easy to grow. Not so easy to thresh. Dont forget the PRG. Bale the straw.
Did you grow it on Bg ground and if so did you use Avadex or rely on the Canary seed smothering it out. How much N did you use and where in the rotation did you grow it?
Only if you don't mind me asking, what made you decide not to grow it any more? Always interesting to see how these niche crops stack up in reality relative to the claims of those promoting them.
I have been asked about it on PM several times, so here is a bit of a potted history:
This has been the second year, but last year. we have grown canary seed. It is a very simple crop to grow. And a weird one. If you havent seen any, the seeds look like fat buff coloured linseeds. We planted ours into a fine seedbed and rolled in early to mid April. Avadex pre-em. The crop takes a long time to emerge and looks like the crappest grass you have ever sown. You know it is canary seed as, if you pull one out, the sap is red like blood. It trundles on until mid May it goes into overdrive. You *must* apply a PGR or it will go flat and will be a disaster. Crop grows high, maybe 5ft tall and very competitive. Our spray program was avadex, then later a BLW spray and PGR. Thats is. About 110kgN, spit half in the seedbed and half when rows visible.
Ours yielded 2.8t/ha and was worth a lot of money. So was profitable. The straw needs to be removed as it doesnt chop well. We bale and use to bed cows on. Ours has been followed by wheat, and the volunteers look like blackgrass. Took ours out with Atlantis I think - we dont plough.
The main plusses are:
Paid well.
Low input.
Wheat following it was good.
Big yield of useful straw for us.
The minuses are:
Very slow to get going / must go into moisture and warmth.
Potential to be a flat disaster if PGR missed. Even if it about to head it has to go on.
The combining is not tricky, but threshing if not fully ready is terrible. It must be dessicated, and you willl need to be patient or it will all go over the back. Concave wants to be so tight the combine squeals. Failing that, we have cut the heads, carted them home, blown two weeks of fristy dry ar through them and put them back through the combine.
It's debatable for me if ti pays more than the linseed we grow for premium crops. I like the linseed. My brother the canary. A farm not far from here grows it continuously - just subsoils after the bales are removed and direct drills in spring every year.
So yes, it is grown on land here with BG, but despite looking pretty pathetic for a few months, it does grow like stink once tillered and that combined with the drilling date etc has given us very, very clean crops of wheat afterwards. We have grown it both after linseed and after wheat. As above, locally I have seen it grown a few years in a row and I expect you could almost grow it continuously.
Partly it comes down to simplicity. We grow winter and spring barley, spring oats, winter wheat, beans, linseed, grass, OSR and an additional niche crop is maybe just pushing the boat a bit. As said, it is my brothers land where we grow it, and he has decided it is his least favorite crop although will admit that the straw is very useful for the stock.
Unlike the linseed, there is no facility to farm save the seed as it is taken on a licensing system rather than through the normal royalty route. The seed is a big % of the cost, and I sometimes get the feeling that these niche crops are really just after the high priced seed sales - I value things like Take-Off and nutrient seed dressings at exactly no pounds so if you ask for the price of an acre of seed and work out what that is per ton you can see there is a big, big margin in the seed. Out of the two, linseed and canary, going back to normal brown linseed and farm saving seed is producing a crop that is simple to grow and sell.
Thanks for the detailed information @static .
I take it's advisable to use a PGR .
Thanks for the detailed information @static .
I take it's advisable to use a PGR .
Phalaris canariensis - canary seed. Big fat seed heads.
Phalaris arundinacea - reed carary grass. Seed heads more like panicles on oats like little fluffy upside-down unberellas.
Red sap is common for phalaris species.
Yeah, looks fairly similar. Not had a problem boffing it when pre-ems / Atlantis in wheat though.
Who has grown it and how have you got on with it ?