DD barley

[SilliamWhale]

p.s. @Feldspar - any albrecht results yet? Or anything from any of you other boys on the Albrecht job - has it gone a bit quiet on it or just wrong time of year?

 

[Feldspar]

p.s. @Feldspar - any albrecht results yet? Or anything from any of you other boys on the Albrecht job - has it gone a bit quiet on it or just wrong time of year?

A little busy atm! I'll write something up once I've got a few more results together. Haven't done the most amazing job of data collection though due to stupid Agco telemetry.

 

[JNG]

anyone remember me whinging about this?

Its done better than expected. Nearer 3t to the acre than 2.5t which is quite a surprise. I think the cold spring made it look especially poor but of course three hot weeks and slightly better moisture retention helped it along. I'm more persuaded sometimes that the early burst of N and lush growth when conv. established crops look great is misleading for cereals, potentially even negative if you consider the natural way of things (eg crops develop slowly with N bursts' in natural cycles)

Soil is lovely underneath. Those hot dry weeks in July (the first for about 3-4 years here) did a bit of good.

Not too bad at all Will, our Claydon S Barley has done 2.3t/ac and it probably looked better than yours early on, it proves again that it is not a beauty contest and its whats in the trailer at the end that counts. That said there are many variables I wonder did you get much rain in June July as we got very little! In dry years also I think it can be a help if the crop is not too thick because it simply will not be able to sustain all the plants/tillers. Waiting to see results of neighbours Barley which is yet to be harvested, min tilled and had a great plant stand and look fabulous compared to ours untill the heat came and it died off very quickly, but no doubt if there was enough moisture at the time, his would have knocked the socks off ours!

 

[SilliamWhale]

Not too bad at all Will, our Claydon S Barley has done 2.3t/ac and it probably looked better than yours early on, it proves again that it is not a beauty contest and its whats in the trailer at the end that counts. That said there are many variables I wonder did you get much rain in June July as we got very little! In dry years also I think it can be a help if the crop is not too thick because it simply will not be able to sustain all the plants/tillers. Waiting to see results of neighbours Barley which is yet to be harvested, min tilled and had a great plant stand and look fabulous compared to ours untill the heat came and it died off very quickly, but no doubt if there was enough moisture at the time, his would have knocked the socks off ours!

Enough in June. Not much in July. But yes agree on tillers etc. I think the fundamental conclusion is that DD is always there or thereabouts for yield. Sometimes better, sometimes worse, mostly the same over the farm. And so it means for me get the building blocks of successful DD in place and then you can concentrate on the other stuff to perfect the system - cover crops, fertility building, lower farm costs etc.

 

[JNG]

Enough in June. Not much in July. But yes agree on tillers etc. I think the fundamental conclusion is that DD is always there or thereabouts for yield. Sometimes better, sometimes worse, mostly the same over the farm. And so it means for me get the building blocks of successful DD in place and then you can concentrate on the other stuff to perfect the system - cover crops, fertility building, lower farm costs etc.

Agree totally, one step at a time, I think it quite probable that if I ploughed some o the farm last year my yields (in some fields) would have been better, (also not much as some ploughed fields very close have done worse than mine) but I am feeling very upbeat at the moment we have the blank canvass after this harvest with fields in great friable condition ready to grow crops with great potential next season, soil in better condition haveing not ploughed in 10-15 years than if they were ploughed 12 months ago. lets just hope we can get the crops in well and early and we dont get too many inches of rain in next few weeks to spoil everything. Plan to have all drilling done this Autumn by last week sept.

 

[martian]

Again, we've been slightly disappointed with the spring barley. We cut all the good bits first and thought all was rosey with the world, although still only yielded a bit over 2.5t/a, the average dropped to nearer 2 by the time we brought the slug and blackgrass affected fields in. S Wheat looked a lot better all year, hit the ground running, but haven't cut it yet and heads look small so not expecting barn busting performance. It's just that barley seed doesn't quite have the get up and go that wheat does, we get away with it on the kinder ground, the cold and wet bits hold the barley back too much. I was hoping that when we get a deeper top layer of mulchy soil the barley might get away better, so sorry to hear from Will that his 5 year DDed ground was no better than newly converted land.

 

[Baling Hay]

Again, we've been slightly disappointed with the spring barley. We cut all the good bits first and thought all was rosey with the world, although still only yielded a bit over 2.5t/a, the average dropped to nearer 2 by the time we brought the slug and blackgrass affected fields in. S Wheat looked a lot better all year, hit the ground running, but haven't cut it yet and heads look small so not expecting barn busting performance. It's just that barley seed doesn't quite have the get up and go that wheat does, we get away with it on the kinder ground, the cold and wet bits hold the barley back too much. I was hoping that when we get a deeper top layer of mulchy soil the barley might get away better, so sorry to hear from Will that his 5 year DDed ground was no better than newly converted land.

Do you think Spring wheat is better for DD than spring barley then?

 

[SilliamWhale]

Do you think Spring wheat is better for DD than spring barley then?

I do. Always have done.

 

[martian]

Do you think Spring wheat is better for DD than spring barley then?

Yes...but this is the first time we've tried s wheat and it's still in the field!

 

[Baling Hay]

Yes...but this is the first time we've tried s wheat and it's still in the field!

Fingers crossed, will be interesting to hear how it yields!