Direct drilled brassicas

[johnflimston]

Sprayed off some leys with glyphosate, cut one field 3 days after spraying for haulage, then direct drilled with brasssica mix. Very patchy germination.
Any ideas, I was wondering if there are toxins produced by the dying brass which is killing the new seedlings.
Next plan is to disc it and resow.

 

[neilo]

Did you apply any slug pellets? There are humongous numbers of grey slugs about this year. I’ve had a lot of swedes destroyed this year, redrillled a lot of it with maincrop turnips, and still had to redrill a good few patches in one field. That was with slug pellets applied too.

I had to redrill a ha of ‘bird seed’ strips twice because of the same problem, drilled with pellets each time (only way of applying on Glastir strips). When I dug down through the soil profile, there were a shocking number of grey slugs lurking there.

That’s without the high flea beetle challenge this year, of course.

 

[Andrew1983]

We have not had much success with non ploughing for these forage crops. We ploughed a field after first cut this year, worked it an broadcast the seed mixed with the fert. It’s looking well. Another field of EFA was sprayed off stubble, topped, deep cultivated, worked then broadcast, same time as the grass field and they look totally different. Plants are stunted and purple vs green an fast growing. We have had this numerous times over the years. I’m not saying it never works as we did some after spring barley last year which came very well but on a whole ploughing seems to always work.

Neilo is probably on the money with slugs too, my veg patch has just been a motorway for slugs an caterpillars too. Stripped the leaves off the cabbages an collie flower. The carrots an parsnips had to be re planted a couple times, only got away when I started putting pellets on for slugs. Blight hit my spuds this year too, just as well we aren’t vegetarians as it would be a hungry winter [emoji23]

 

[neilo]

We have not had much success with non ploughing for these forage crops. We ploughed a field after first cut this year, worked it an broadcast the seed mixed with the fert. It’s looking well. Another field of EFA was sprayed off stubble, topped, deep cultivated, worked then broadcast, same time as the grass field and they look totally different. Plants are stunted and purple vs green an fast growing. We have had this numerous times over the years. I’m not saying it never works as we did some after spring barley last year which came very well but on a whole ploughing seems to always work.

Neilo is probably on the money with slugs too, my veg patch has just been a motorway for slugs an caterpillars too. Stripped the leaves off the cabbages an collie flower. The carrots an parsnips had to be re planted a couple times, only got away when I started putting pellets on for slugs. Blight hit my spuds this year too, just as well we aren’t vegetarians as it would be a hungry winter [emoji23]

Crops drilled on Cultivated ground should always look better, certainly early on, as it will have mineralised some of the OM, releasing Nitrogen. My main reason for DD’ing brassica crops is to keep the ground firmer for grazing over winter (clay soil would make for an even bigger mess if it was ploughed here), along with better timeliness and reduced establishment costs.

 

[Chae1]

We just powerharrowed our stubble for forage rape. Peeping through after a week.
Not economic to plough for them at this late in year with risk of crop failure.

 

[Derrick Hughes]

Planted 6 weeks .
Never seen Rape grow so quick

 

[joshp217]

Avalon and Italian ryegrass directed drilled on the 7th August, lambs turned in today. Had a few bare patches due to slugs even after pellets, will probably go back to ploughing next year as we've spent far to much on pellets. But very happy with the growth of this mix supplied by @Great In Grass

 

[neilo]

I have a field of DD’ed Clampsaver (Gorilla rape &IRG) drilled in late July which I’m grazing now. That’s got a bare patch that I redrilled last week, after grazing the rape that was there. Huge numbers of slugs about this year.

That crop is waste high and I’ve lost my ram lambs in it for a while. Pretty sure the Gorilla rape has been so vigorous that it’s been at the expense of the grass, and unlikely to go with that mix again as a result.