Cover crop mix

gpj.greed

Member
Mixed Farmer
Would like to run through the osr stubbles to mix in the massive amount of pod trash. In the past have done this with a spring tine and by time come back to drill all the trash has disappeared.
Was then thinking I could use the drill to do this and put some linseed in the tank. This is will be cheap as it's leftover from last year. 20kgs a hectare?
Shall I buy some buckwheat to add to the mix?

I've been thinking along the same lines. Was going to try 10kg of linseed and 8kg of buckwheat
 

martian

DD Moderator
BASE UK Member
Location
N Herts
Covers grown away well here
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Bit of a mix of various seeds left in shed. Will I get away with drilling wheat straight into it?
 

martian

DD Moderator
BASE UK Member
Location
N Herts
Can't remember exact drilling date, but it went in fairly early, March/April. It's the bit of ground that surrounds the Groundswell drilling demo plots, we were using up some left over seed from last autumn and it got a slow start with the dry spring, but has motored on with a bit of wet...

Combining some dirty six inch high spring beans yesterday (they surprised us by yielding nearly1t/ha after I'd dressed the stones out, which should cover the diesel bill but not much else) made me think that a multi-species cover crop drilled in the spring will pay much better than a lame spring break crop. This ground was full of blackgrass after Groundswell last year, under the cover you can find the odd bg plant, but really not very many, which is more than could be said of our beans. The soil is much mellower with all those roots and next years wheat should benefit and thus be very cheap to grow. I feel an @Dockers wheat/fallow rotation coming on, but with a lovely cover crop feeding the soil in the 'fallow'. Would make harvest that little bit more relaxing...
 

Simon C

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Essex Coast
Can't remember exact drilling date, but it went in fairly early, March/April. It's the bit of ground that surrounds the Groundswell drilling demo plots, we were using up some left over seed from last autumn and it got a slow start with the dry spring, but has motored on with a bit of wet...

Combining some dirty six inch high spring beans yesterday (they surprised us by yielding nearly1t/ha after I'd dressed the stones out, which should cover the diesel bill but not much else) made me think that a multi-species cover crop drilled in the spring will pay much better than a lame spring break crop. This ground was full of blackgrass after Groundswell last year, under the cover you can find the odd bg plant, but really not very many, which is more than could be said of our beans. The soil is much mellower with all those roots and next years wheat should benefit and thus be very cheap to grow. I feel an @Dockers wheat/fallow rotation coming on, but with a lovely cover crop feeding the soil in the 'fallow'. Would make harvest that little bit more relaxing...
I have done a summer cover on part of a bad blackgrass field this year, looked fantastic and had many admirers. Any spreadsheet farmers on here tell us what savings on the alternate wheat crops we would need to make up for the loss of income in the cover years.
 

martian

DD Moderator
BASE UK Member
Location
N Herts
Well, I'm coming round to the idea that blackgrass is best beaten by multi-species covers or leys. We won't make much profit on a 1t/ha bean crop and there is still a lot of bg seed/seedlings on the surface ready to infest the first wheat (although our wheat behind beans this year were our best wheats). Behind this cover, which cost us diddly squat and is alive with bees and interest, we should be able to grow a cheap but bounteous wheat. Time will tell
 

Clive

Staff Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lichfield
Well, I'm coming round to the idea that blackgrass is best beaten by multi-species covers or leys. We won't make much profit on a 1t/ha bean crop and there is still a lot of bg seed/seedlings on the surface ready to infest the first wheat (although our wheat behind beans this year were our best wheats). Behind this cover, which cost us diddly squat and is alive with bees and interest, we should be able to grow a cheap but bounteous wheat. Time will tell

The year I had a failed soya crop and re planted with a summer cover the following year the extra yield / margin of the wheat went a long way to make up for the lost spring crop

Interstingly over the next 3 harvests that field has stayed above its historic average

I think a year off in a good cover did it a lot of good that has probably paid back now
 

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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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