Direct drilling forage rape

[JPM]

I’ve just sprayed off a grazing field that hasn’t been ploughed for years due to it being impractical due to knowes etc.

Usually we’d go in with the discs once it’s killed off and have to pass it 4/5 times to get a good tilth.

Instead of that I was thinking of direct seeding forage rape to graze with lambs in the backend then spray off and disc/re-seed with grass in the spring.

Think it’ll be a lot easier worked after the lambs have been over it and the winter has killed the sod off.

Anyone done that with much success before?

 

[Chae1]

@scholland

 

[scholland]

Ye done it, forage rape is pretty robust.
If you decide to disc I'm sure 1 pass and broadcast the roll would be fine.

This year we have either dd with our moore or shallow disc and broadcast.

 

[JPM]

Ye done it, forage rape is pretty robust.
If you decide to disc I'm sure 1 pass and broadcast the roll would be fine.

This year we have either dd with our moore or shallow disc and broadcast.

Ah good stuff[emoji106]. We usually disc our wholecrop fields and then broadcast but tried a contractor with direct drill last year in stubble and it seemed a big improvement over broadcast.

Will try direct again and maybe give it a good covering of slurry afterwords?

 

[Nearly]

As a desperate attempt to grow something last autumn I just power harrowed the green (but almost dead) grass and combi drilled the rape.
Cows didn't complain.

 

[Derrick Hughes]

Been sprayed 18 days . Not drilled yet . Another 2 weeks it will be green over again ,seed growing from the old grass

 

[dunk999]

How come you haven't sown it sooner the rape would outcompete the grass if it gets the headstart?

 

[dunk999]

Been sprayed 18 days . Not drilled yet . Another 2 weeks it will be green over again ,seed growing from the old grass

 

[Derrick Hughes]

How come you haven't sown it sooner the rape would outcompete the grass if it gets the headstart?

5 days was pre harvest then I had to sort some drains out, then I've been away and its rained every day . I ain't realy fussed , but I've had that on cultivated land as well , ,so if I had drilled new seeds in 10 days ago those grasses from the grasses I wanted to get rid of would be reseeding themselves

 

[neilo]

How come you haven't sown it sooner the rape would outcompete the grass if it gets the headstart?

No, that doesn’t look like grass coming from seed, it looks like couchgrass regrowing from the half dead stems. I’ve done the same several times, with a second (lower rate) of glyphosate killing it off properly.

I have a field here that was sprayed off and DD’ed with a 12 month grass/clover mix, which is showing just the same sort of regrowth. My plan was to hit it again next Spring, but would have been better left like Derek has, for a complete kill as it tries to come back.

 

[aledjones3130]

All you need now Derick Is a Simtek Atchinson drill