cut off date for combinable crops

[willy]

both - everything will grow super fast given some warmth - it will go through growth stages faster than we can spray and fertilise it I reckon !

I tend to agree, I always find our land is better with a crop than fallow. Just need to sort rotation out for following year

 

[cat312]

Think it was 2000 we had a wet shitty autumn and i drilled sp barley on the 1st may year following, harvest date wasnt much later than normal, but i do know we followed it with osr so wouldnt of been later than first week in sept

 

[willy]

Think it was 2000 we had a wet shitty autumn and i drilled sp barley on the 1st may year following, harvest date wasnt much later than normal, but i do know we followed it with osr so wouldnt of been later than first week in sept

How did it yield?

 

[cat312]

How did it yield?

job to remember if im honest but dont recall it being a disaster

 

[Refco]

I think it's just a case of going with the flow with an eye on the weather than trying to push a square peg into a round hole with an eye on the calendar.

Some of my lighter land may drill in the next couple of days if this good drying wind keeps up. Whether the seed will do anything may be a different story...

 

[JCfarmer]

Have you missed the snow and rain then? Can't see us drilling spring barley for 2 weeks at least.

 

[Refco]

Have you missed the snow and rain then? Can't see us drilling spring barley for 2 weeks at least.

The lighter land is a bit further to the east and a bit lower lying, so has dodged most of the snow. I do have some heavier stuff up a height which i had a walk on today, and was similar to walking on an iceberg. (Not that i've ever walked on an iceberg, but if i did, then i'm sure that's what it would feel like!)

 

[franklin]

I tend to agree, I always find our land is better with a crop than fallow. Just need to sort rotation out for following year

Everyone seems to be telling me this at the moment. But I cant see exactly why. What will 5 months of linseed growth, scratched onto some wet plop do to the soil that leaving the existing barley / wheat / weed volunteers not do? I have untouched oat stubbles with a nice fur of volunteer oats on - I cant see what spraying those off to replace with a scraggy forced spring bean crop will benefit? I appreciate that fields which were direct drilled with now failed rape that have had herbicides and insecticides and water stood will not be happy left alone, but surely a managed fallow fertilised for the next crop and worked when dry will be "happier" soil than that after a poor spring crop?

I have never had fallow before so it is new to me.

 

[gone up the hill]

Everyone seems to be telling me this at the moment. But I cant see exactly why. What will 5 months of linseed growth, scratched onto some wet plop do to the soil that leaving the existing barley / wheat / weed volunteers not do? I have untouched oat stubbles with a nice fur of volunteer oats on - I cant see what spraying those off to replace with a scraggy forced spring bean crop will benefit? I appreciate that fields which were direct drilled with now failed rape that have had herbicides and insecticides and water stood will not be happy left alone, but surely a managed fallow fertilised for the next crop and worked when dry will be "happier" soil than that after a poor spring crop?

I have never had fallow before so it is new to me.

Get a crop of some sorts in, even if its a cheap catch crop and you plough it back in, iv seen plenty of fields that for one reason and another went 12 months without a crop and in every case the following crop never yielded half as well as the field next door that did have a crop in the past 12 months!!

As for cut off dates for sowing, spring oats will be fine upto 20 May and spring barley upto end of April, earlier you can drill the better but spring crops need to go into a decent warm seedbed and be up and away within 10 days/ two weeks to get the best yield.

Make sure that if drilling spring barley/ oats then you put at least 60 units of N in the seed bed!

 

[franklin]

Cheap catch crops in the shed ready for action. But I still remain to be convinced that they will do a lot if they are mulched in end of June after being in the ground 10 weeks.

Anyone have a view of sowing winter oats in spring? I am led to believe that there is no vernalisation requirement : winter oats just being hardier than spring oats? My brother only wants them for the straw.

 

[gone up the hill]

Cheap catch crops in the shed ready for action. But I still remain to be convinced that they will do a lot if they are mulched in end of June after being in the ground 10 weeks.

Anyone have a view of sowing winter oats in spring? I am led to believe that there is no vernalisation requirement : winter oats just being hardier than spring oats? My brother only wants them for the straw.

If your unsure then go 50/50 split and do half the farm or even better half some fields and see if there is any difference, ideally u want something like clover etc that will bring in N to the soil.

Winter oats are fine to put in upto end of Feb or even mid march at a push ( plenty gone in around here first week of march this year ) but think you are pushing it a bit late now ( thou given the weather this year who knows!!!! )

 

[sussexboy]

sowed winter oats last year ( leap year) 29th feb, one fungicide spray, yielded 1.75 t to the acre, full of blackgrass though... ww now, drilled 22 feb who knows!! least i can say i tried...

 

[Brisel]

Just started working down ploughed land for the drill to start putting in spring barley tomorrow. Tacky underneath but ok so far.

 

[yellow belly]

too much snow to drill for a week or two

1994 planted spring crops on heavy land 16 to 22 april at todays prices they the yealds would produce a profit
wheat after a break crop has always beaten setaside

in my experience harvest date is related to weather in may to august and not drilling date

one of my neighbours remembers drilling spring crops on light land on 26 January 1947 they did not finish the field for 10 weeks because the snow was so deep
the summer was hot and dry

 

[shakerator]

YB what yields have you had this late on heavy land for beans and spring corn

 

[SilliamWhale]

Cheap catch crops in the shed ready for action. But I still remain to be convinced that they will do a lot if they are mulched in end of June after being in the ground 10 weeks.

Anyone have a view of sowing winter oats in spring? I am led to believe that there is no vernalisation requirement : winter oats just being hardier than spring oats? My brother only wants them for the straw.

See Roberts pictures in the DD section. cover then wW

 

[yellow belly]

YB what yields have you had this late on heavy land for beans and spring corn

varietys have come on a bit since then
norlin 0.4 tonne per acre after autumn ploughing( very wet )and phdrill low n rate in those days linseed was £160 a tonne so spending a lot on yeald did not pay if it made the crop late .combined on 2 September

Alfred beans 1 tonne ,current varietys much better yealding

spring rape was half a tonne with winter rape at .6 tonne the crop that looked better than most of this years crops on similar land kerb gave it a kicking just as it has many crops this year (plants need to be big enough to survive kerb ,very few crops are this year )
£160 a tonne so not high n rate

at this years prices these yealds make growing a crop better than an unfertilised cover crop

the linseed left the half of a field in much better shape then the setaside half you could see the difference in the following 2 crops

the above was not on drought prone land the dryer the better current rainfall in the last 12 months is 40 inches when the average is 24.5 inches and 2011 had 16.5inches and the second best yealds in the last 10 years