We might play about with a bit of direct drilled maize in the next year or two, using a Mzuri Pro Til going into cereal stubbles on for the most part very light land.
Currently the fields in question tend to be based around an oats/maize rotation. Sometimes with wheat instead of one or the other. Therefore hoping to convert this to a strip tilled rotation whereby we can go oats/maize or if we don't need so much maize some years we can expand it out to an oats/wheat/maize rotation. The benefit of going to strip till here instead of conventional ploughing and cultivating would be hopefully increased traffic carrying ability when it comes to the maize harvest, better moisture retention, lessened workload and thus cheaper establishment.
So we would have an opportunity to grow a cover between the cereal being harvested and the maize being planted. We bale and cart so it might be that the field isn't cleared until the end of August in an average year, so that would mean a later than ideal drilling date for the cover. However we might broadcast the cover into the standing crop at the end of July as an alternative. This is what we do with all our stubble turnips that we graze cattle on over winter, gives a longer growing season etc plus with @Cotswold Seeds clay coating offer this year we might be able to spread the full width of our 24m tramlines. Normally we can only spread to 18m and then patch up with a 6m tineseeder at a later date.
Anyway so the question is, does anyone have any thoughts on potential covers in this situation? Considering Ethiopian Brown & White mustard as it's a cheap mix, gives decent cover to disperse rain etc through winter, large biomass ground cover to retain moisture as it dies off in Spring and should be easily killed. Would then also throw in a few stubble turnips as we have loads obviously for more rooting effect, although would it be a negative to have soggy rotting turnips in amongst the maize? Would want to avoid cereals in the cover. Cover would be sprayed off a couple months before drilling time.
We would just trial a few acres to begin with, compared to bare stubble, compared to conventional approach, and then potentially roll it out across a larger acreage in the future. Could be a waste of time. Be interested in people's thoughts.
Currently the fields in question tend to be based around an oats/maize rotation. Sometimes with wheat instead of one or the other. Therefore hoping to convert this to a strip tilled rotation whereby we can go oats/maize or if we don't need so much maize some years we can expand it out to an oats/wheat/maize rotation. The benefit of going to strip till here instead of conventional ploughing and cultivating would be hopefully increased traffic carrying ability when it comes to the maize harvest, better moisture retention, lessened workload and thus cheaper establishment.
So we would have an opportunity to grow a cover between the cereal being harvested and the maize being planted. We bale and cart so it might be that the field isn't cleared until the end of August in an average year, so that would mean a later than ideal drilling date for the cover. However we might broadcast the cover into the standing crop at the end of July as an alternative. This is what we do with all our stubble turnips that we graze cattle on over winter, gives a longer growing season etc plus with @Cotswold Seeds clay coating offer this year we might be able to spread the full width of our 24m tramlines. Normally we can only spread to 18m and then patch up with a 6m tineseeder at a later date.
Anyway so the question is, does anyone have any thoughts on potential covers in this situation? Considering Ethiopian Brown & White mustard as it's a cheap mix, gives decent cover to disperse rain etc through winter, large biomass ground cover to retain moisture as it dies off in Spring and should be easily killed. Would then also throw in a few stubble turnips as we have loads obviously for more rooting effect, although would it be a negative to have soggy rotting turnips in amongst the maize? Would want to avoid cereals in the cover. Cover would be sprayed off a couple months before drilling time.
We would just trial a few acres to begin with, compared to bare stubble, compared to conventional approach, and then potentially roll it out across a larger acreage in the future. Could be a waste of time. Be interested in people's thoughts.
