Claydon Hybrid M - 4 metre

Mustard isn't so great underground even if what's above ground looks great. This isn't a cover crop thread, though I would argue that they have a place but not at the kind of cost the seed trade want us to spend!

@Simon C feeds his soils carbon in other ways IIRC.

My apologies about talking about cover crops but I'm just trying to find out why certain growers are very negative on cover crops , they have possibly grown them for many years and have good reason ,
 

Brisel

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Midlands
You could get carried away & spend £80+/ha on establishing a pukka cover crop. The direct benefit is inconsistent and hard to measure. For fungicides & nitrogen there is lots of trial work that says put X in and get Y out most years - no such data exists for cover crops. What cover crops do is to keep the soil biology alive which should improve organic matter in the long term - see how dead a fallow field is.

Setaside was a classic example of how no plant cover resulted in slumped soils. Spray off weeds in April and again in June then work them up in July. Cold, lifeless snot with no earthworms. Did that land yield less than after a break crop? Mostly, though reduced weed pressure cancelled some of that out.

I will grow cover crops for 4 reasons;

  1. My boss has an environmental agenda for restoring a shootable number of grey partridge. Holding cover is critical though it may spread the birds across an area unfeasible to beat effectively! Other species will also benefit.
  2. Potential stewardship income helping offset some of the costs
  3. (Back on topic I hope) My fields aren't level enough for even seed depth on the Claydon - drilling cover crops into the stubble at an angle will help level the ground up using the paddles at the back of the drill.
  4. I want to see for myself what the benefits are by doing my own trial with and without these cover crops, and also to see how much they REALLY cost on my farm. If they need insecticides, graminicdes and slug pellets just to keep them going it's just not going to be a cheap soil organic matter building block.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 79 42.9%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 63 34.2%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 16.3%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 6 3.3%

Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

  • 1,287
  • 1
As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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