Cover crops - what did well this year

[phil]

Wondering how everyone cover crops grew this year. What grew well and what disappointed.
Early sown rad till did best here.
Groundhog radish + vetch + winter peas. Trying to formulate a mix that could be sown with carrier. So no big seeds

 

[YELROM]

The radish look impressive
How deep have they gone and will you just spray off and DD straight into that cover

 

[phil]

Might need a mini digger to find out. Carrier with cross cutter then drill

 

[Robigus]

@phil what sort of seed rate were you using and what do you think it cost?

 

[Warp Land Farmer]

Looks nice soil Phil, do you have any grass weed issues? Does a cover crop drown them out or would you be best working towards stale seedbeds?

 

[Andy Howard]

In our mixes the oats have done the best which shows how cool and cloudy august was. Linseed was good. Vetches finally catching up. Radishes are large but sparser than should be. This year Phacelia not great after winter wheat but did well after WOSR.

 

[TopBanana]

Will be putting 20kg of N on next year , the vetch is starting to get there but not as much as expected. radish is looking better.

 

[snowhite]

Wondering how everyone cover crops grew this year. What grew well and what disappointed.
Early sown rad till did best here.
Groundhog radish + vetch + winter peas. Trying to formulate a mix that could be sown with carrier. So no big seeds

looks great i would love to be making silage of that , lol

 

[phil]

Looks nice soil Phil, do you have any grass weed issues? Does a cover crop drown them out or would you be best working towards stale seedbeds?

Soil is in lovely condition. It has being min tilled since 2004. No grassweeds of any note. AMG is all but kept under control with a roundup or ipu in crop. Only use stale seed beds for winter cropping. Cover crops ahead of spring cropping. Will be planting spring wheat or barley ahead b of @Pedders rad till

 

[warksfarmer]

Wondering how everyone cover crops grew this year. What grew well and what disappointed.
Early sown rad till did best here.
Groundhog radish + vetch + winter peas. Trying to formulate a mix that could be sown with carrier. So no big seeds

Our first attempt was with tillage radish and phacelia mix. direct drilled into stubble in late august early sept and today we are disappointed. The dry weather did not help but we have not got proper soil cover so grass weeds are present as they normally would be. We used the seed rate advised but we think its to low in hindsight.

The idea behind this was to provide a cover hopefully surpressing the grass weeds as well as providing a 'cultivation' so prior to spring planting we would not need to move the soil and potentially could go direct with a spring crop.

Although since we planted this a very prominent no tiller told me the following about cover crops ..... 'cover crops ..... they are like keeping bees .... a good idea but keep them as an idea'

Think this may well be right because the seed is not cheap so to end up putting on potentially double the seed rate I think makes them unviable for us as we are not lacking in organic matter due to materials we are spreading in front of most crops.

 

[phil]

This was sown last week of July. Had rain after drilling and two good months of weather. No drought. Ahead of spring cropping cover is beneficial. Unless it is drilled in august it can be unreliable. Oats is reliable in wet weather / later timings. Cover crops need to be cost effective.
DD cover crops might lack the mineralisation of nitrogen you might get from disc or cultivator drill

 

[warksfarmer]

This was sown last week of July. Had rain after drilling and two good months of weather. No drought. Ahead of spring cropping cover is beneficial. Unless it is drilled in august it can be unreliable. Oats is reliable in wet weather / later timings. Cover crops need to be cost effective.
DD cover crops might lack the mineralisation of nitrogen you might get from disc or cultivator drill

We applied compost to the stubbles prior to planting the cover crop though.

 

[Daniel]

This DSV Solarigol mix is looking decent, drilled first week Sept:

 

[snowhite]

yes looks good , is it just to turn back in or can sheep get at it

 

[phil]

This DSV Solarigol mix is looking decent, drilled first week Sept:

View attachment 75862View attachment 75863

What's in mix

 

[Great In Grass]

What's in mix

DSV TerraLife-SolaRigol DT contains: Egyptian/squarrose clover, false flax, linseed, niger, deeptill radish, bristle oat, common vetch

 

[warksfarmer]

This DSV Solarigol mix is looking decent, drilled first week Sept:

View attachment 75862View attachment 75863

What was the seedrate and cost?

 

[Daniel]

DSV TerraLife-SolaRigol DT contains: Egyptian/squarrose clover, false flax, linseed, niger, deeptill radish, bristle oat, common vetch

Unless you decide to control the large amount of volunteer wheat with a bit of shogun in which case it removes the oats for you....

 

[Daniel]

What was the seedrate and cost?

30kg/ha and about £60/ha

I will get a pic of another field which was done with the DSV NFixx mix at 40kg/ha, about the same cost.

It's too expensive, but it was what we could get this year at short notice for an opportunistic trial. On our soil the Claydon pass chitted every last cracked bit of wheat so decided to take the volunteers out, which also removed the oats and checked the buckwheat in the NFixx mix.

There's a bit of a flaw with covercrops in that you have no chance to get a flush of volunteers and kill before establishing the cover, which I believe they do do with earlier harvests on the continent. Our Mulika was hard to thrash with the result that under each swath there was a carpet of volunteers competing. Behind winter wheat it wasn't an issue.

Certainly keen to try it again next year with a few tweaks to the system though.

 

[Daniel]

NFixx: