Daft pea question...

[Bury the Trash]

For grazing/green manure?

i did it to combine but yes , why not

 

[neilo]

Just had the wettest autumn for several years, and folk are bigging up spring peas. Full marks for enthusiasm guys...

I’m only thinking of it as a nutrient building crop, paid for by a govt enviro scheme. Certainly not as a combinable option!

 

[FarmerBruce]

Our pea seed cost £285/ha last year

 

[ollie989898]

So... spring peas at mucho mucho mucho £/tonne in seed cost, you're drilling them (again after probably the carpiest autumn in years) and then growing them with no herbicide for money from de govament.

Forgive me but this all sounds like a pyramid scheme dreamt up by our pigeon overlords if you ask me. Those wood pigeons are gonna be the size of turkeys by about July and so overgrown they can't take off.

 

[alomy75]

I’m only thinking of it as a nutrient building crop, paid for by a govt enviro scheme. Certainly not as a combinable option!

Go beans; easier to DD, more biomass early on, pigeons don’t eat them and I’d wager the seed would be cheaper. Plus you can einbock them for an element of weed control

 

[ollie989898]

Go beans; easier to DD, more biomass early on, pigeons don’t eat them and I’d wager the seed would be cheaper. Plus you can einbock them for an element of weed control

Land would need to be heavy enough for beans, they don't like it too dry. I agree though that they would be easier to work with and far better able to dominate weeds and you can harrow them. Probably get more biomass for your buck, too.

 

[SilliamWhale]

Better off just putting grass and clover in than f**king about like that.

Pea seed not cheap. Not is roundup before or after. Drilling isn't free

 

[glasshouse]

I’ve just received an invoice for 30t of Adder marrowfat seed at £809/t!

Would it be feasible to grow a crop of Spring peas, unsprayed, with the aim of incorporating as a green manure after 12 weeks?

The reason I ask is that there is a Welsh enviro scheme open at the moment, where one of the options is to grow a protein crop with no weed control. It would need to be sown by May 15th and be in the ground for 12 weeks. Maybe an option to sell it as wholecrop (I have no use myself), but I can only imagine it would be a pretty weedy crop without herbicides.
Plan would be to destroy the crop after 12 weeks and grow a winter fodder crop on the residual N, or into winter cereals.

Alternatively beans or lupins could be grown, but know even less about them.

What would the seed cost (must be certified sown at 'recommended' rate, whatever that is)?

Scheme pays £270/ha, but little cost other than seed if DD'ed in, and residual N & OM worth a good bit. Trying to think outside the box, rather than risk another marginal/loss making Spring Cereal crop with expensive seed.

Depends on your weed burden
I grew organic peas no problem years ago

 

[glasshouse]

Organic peas 2004

 

[glasshouse]

I’m only thinking of it as a nutrient building crop, paid for by a govt enviro scheme. Certainly not as a combinable option!

Go on, take the gamble

 

[ollie989898]

For a sizeable area of beans, would it be worth hiring a stripper header so you could get on and pick them up?

 

[glasshouse]

For a sizeable area of beans, would it be worth hiring a stripper header so you could get on and pick them up?

Stripperheader is not needed for beans

 

[ollie989898]

Stripperheader is not needed for beans

Sorry, peas rather. Got a lot of stuff on the go here this evening.

 

[glasshouse]

Sorry, peas rather. Got a lot of stuff on the go here this evening.

A stripper tends to pull the whole pea plant out of the ground so filling combine with soil. Got that t shirt and repair bill

 

[Bogweevil]

Would it be feasible to grow a crop of Spring peas, unsprayed, with the aim of incorporating as a green manure after 12 weeks?

The reason I ask is that there is a Welsh enviro scheme open at the moment, where one of the options is to grow a protein crop with no weed control. It would need to be sown by May 15th and be in the ground for 12 weeks. Maybe an option to sell it as wholecrop (I have no use myself), but I can only imagine it would be a pretty weedy crop without herbicides.
Plan would be to destroy the crop after 12 weeks and grow a winter fodder crop on the residual N, or into winter cereals.

Alternatively beans or lupins could be grown, but know even less about them.

What would the seed cost (must be certified sown at 'recommended' rate, whatever that is)?

Scheme pays £270/ha, but little cost other than seed if DD'ed in, and residual N & OM worth a good bit. Trying to think outside the box, rather than risk another marginal/loss making Spring Cereal crop with expensive seed

Not daft at all, common practice to grow vetches ahead of organic veg crops.

Don't see why peas cannot be used in the same way but vetches can be autumn sown to get a head start which is risky even for forage peas.

Unsure of price/availability of vetch seed.

 

[neilo]

Update on this...
RPW have decreed that the crop must be taken to harvest (combined or ensiled) in order to qualify for this scheme. Not happening then.

 

[David.]

Everyone should get to enjoy combining peas once.

 

[e3120]

Update on this...
RPW have decreed that the crop must be taken to harvest (combined or ensiled) in order to qualify for this scheme. Not happening then.

You probably know a slapdash enough contractor who would miss enough bits and sky over the remainder to meet both your and wag ambitions. If they omitted to turn up, who'd care?

 

[neilo]

You probably know a slapdash enough contractor who would miss enough bits and sky over the remainder to meet both your and wag ambitions. If they omitted to turn up, who'd care?

Geo-located photos required of each stage is required as evidence when submitting the claim.

I suppose I could take a photo of a combine in each field, while he's here doing the winter barley...

 

[Humble Village Farmer]

Update on this...
RPW have decreed that the crop must be taken to harvest (combined or ensiled) in order to qualify for this scheme. Not happening then.

Pty, but if protein was the aim, presumably to reduce reliance on rainforest soya, makes sense.
Otherwise, it sounds like a summer cover crop to me, but designed to limit the benefit to soil, livestock and farmer, so par for the course.