Companion cropping OSR

[Adams1978]

So the rape and companion crop has been in just over a week and it doesn’t look to bad. We basically just mixed it all together and chucked it in the hopper on the sim tech. We went for a mix of buckwheat, vetch and burseem clover. The seed mix was 1kg burseem 3.5kg buckwheat 3.5kg vetch.

Drilling rates
High euricic at 2.5 and 3.0 kg/ha.
plus 12 kg companion.
New seed Campus 4.0 kg/ha plus 12 kg companion
Own seed Campus.5.0 kg/ha plus 12 kg companion
Own seed 6.0 kg/ha plus 20 kg companion

It will be interesting to see how it goes. Also at the moment there doesn’t seem to be to much flea beetle damage

Observations this week are that the clover has come reasonably well but the vetch population doesn’t seem to be there? It was all drilled at about 2 inches in to moisture and has had about 1.5 inches of rain since planting.
Also where we had a fire in the stubble over a large part of the field the CSFB damage is very high compared to every where else.

 

[Michael S]

Is this after barley or wheat n did u chop ?

After wheat, chopped straw.

 

[Adams1978]

After wheat, chopped straw.

All straw was removed this year, the 2 fields in above photos were following oats.

I was wondering if the CSFB was attracted to the bare soil where we had a fire, also this piece had been cultivated with a hankmo star harrow.

Also for some reason the vetch does not seem to have germinated or has been eaten?

 

[juke]

All straw was removed this year, the 2 fields in above photos were following oats.

I was wondering if the CSFB was attracted to the bare soil where we had a fire, also this piece had been cultivated with a hankmo star harrow.

Also for some reason the vetch does not seem to have germinated or has been eaten?

im wondering if u drilled your vetch too deep at 2 inches and a lack of moisture perhaps hasn't helped.

 

[average farmer]

All straw was removed this year, the 2 fields in above photos were following oats.

I was wondering if the CSFB was attracted to the bare soil where we had a fire, also this piece had been cultivated with a hankmo star harrow.

Also for some reason the vetch does not seem to have germinated or has been eaten?

our worst csfb damage is following whole crop triticale which was worked as if it was fallow. a few around here drilled osr after fallow and that seems badly affected to.

 

[Adams1978]

our worst csfb damage is following whole crop triticale which was worked as if it was fallow. a few around here drilled osr after fallow and that seems badly affected to.

I wonder if the bare or worked soil is a contributing factor in attracting CSFB

 

[britt]

A friend of mine near here has drilled some rape notill and some cultivated over the last 3 years. He has noticed that the notill stuff if far less affected by CSFB than the other. Also that neighbours tilled established crop had more CSFB.
I have no comparisons because I jumped in with both feet, but thought CSFB was not a problem around here and have never had to spray for it before this year
.

 

[CornishTone]

For those that are interested, the Peola next to the office is being harvested as we speak. Looked like it finished quite well and in unison with both crops still standing, which is more than can be said for the other crop of Peola I’ve seen which gave up the ghost some time ago in the dry.

Probably should’ve been cut a week or more ago but that’s life in the Barossa I guess. This guy has a sizeable vineyard to run as well and its peak season for vine spraying, so a fair bit going on. Be interesting to see what yield he gets when it’s all separated.

 

[Bury the Trash]

For those that are interested, the Peola next to the office is being harvested as we speak. Looked like it finished quite well and in unison with both crops still standing, which is more than can be said for the other crop of Peola I’ve seen which gave up the ghost some time ago in the dry.

Probably should’ve been cut a week or more ago but that’s life in the Barossa I guess. This guy has a sizeable vineyard to run as well and its peak season for vine spraying, so a fair bit going on. Be interesting to see what yield he gets when it’s all separated.

cant see the peas tho in them pics

and have you got a pick of the sample before its cleaned/separated ?

 

[CornishTone]

They’re there. The combine driver was having a bad day so I didn’t go climbing around to fat a sample. Didn’t want to tip him over the edge!

But it does come in cleaner than I thought it would. It was very dry, like I said, possibly should’ve been cut a while ago.

 

[tr250]

Rape and burseem clover mixed together in drill. Direct into s barley stubble

 

[CornishTone]

cant see the peas tho in them pics

and have you got a pick of the sample before its cleaned/separated ?

Also, both grains were quite small, but I suspect that has more to do with the dry season than anything else.

 

[jonnyjon]

Rape and burseem clover mixed together in drill. Direct into s barley stubble

Super

 

[tr250]

Super

I'm very pleased with it but it's the only field of rape we have that is good but it's the only one after spring barley this year the rest is after winter barley and stubble has been baked and it's not been cultivated since 2014

 

[Brisel]

I'd like to do more companion cropping in osr but have a broad leafed herbicide programme that doesn't suit them. In my case that involves poppy, cleavers, thistles and hedge mustard. Astrokerb in December will deal with most but not the cleavers nor hedge mustard.

Are there any suitable companions for non Clearfield oilseed rape that aren't affected by clomazone pre emergence? @Andy Howard ?

 

[Andy Howard]

We use clomazone on our peas and beans when intercropping with SOSR. So spring beans or peas. Not sure off sensitivity of other legumes like vetch.

 

[Michael S]

Rape and burseem clover mixed together in drill. Direct into s barley stubble

Looks good, what drill was it drilled with?

 

[tr250]

Weaving mounted gd

 

[CornishTone]

cant see the peas tho in them pics

and have you got a pick of the sample before its cleaned/separated ?

Just got the low down from the grower (it’s my bosses customer), it doesn’t make great reading and my boss is fairly scathing about the whole concept.

It makes weed control tricky as the peas mean some key canola herbicides like Lontrel are out of the question which, for most growers/agronomists, that’s a key reason for including canola in the rotation. Feeding them is awkward because the peas don’t provide huge amounts of N for the canola, but if you try to top up with N it knocks the peas around. Then there’s separating the two, which is probably not as much of a problem as he makes out.

The canola from that paddock yielded 350kg/ha [emoji33] off 1kg/ha of seed and the peas yielded 1t/ha off 80-90kg/ha of seed on 200ish mm of GSR. A “normal” year with 475-500mm of rain maybe would’ve been a different story, but by the time you’ve costed in the time and energy to separate it I can’t imagine there was much margin in it this year.

My experience of it is only in low rainfall Mallee country where seed rates are a little lower, 60kgs of DAP down the spout, chuck some Clethodim at it and close the gate. This year the peas died and the canola was barely worth putting the header through! The stuff up here in the valley would’ve been mollycoddled a little more with fungicides etc etc.

I think you have to be very clear about why you’re doing it and what you want to achieve as it does add a level of complexity in the decision making process.

 

[Adams1978]

im wondering if u drilled your vetch too deep at 2 inches and a lack of moisture perhaps hasn't helped.

The vetch just took a little longer to come I think. The photos below are from last week, the buckwheat died off when the temp dropped. The vetch and clover are still going great guns, not sure why the vetch took so long to appear