Direct drilling swedes

[Derrick Hughes]

I used to drill at 45.000 seed acre same as fodder beet whatever that is in weight
Think a kg does 6acres

 

[d-wales]

What kind of drill and what time of year did you drill them?

Moore uni drill and it was drilled 16th June.

 

[Bob the beef]

Moore uni drill and it was drilled 16th June.

thanks

 

[adda]

I grew 40 acres of swedes for many years , used to trial new veriaties as well ,Invitation being one of those ,but always grew Ruta Otofte as my main veriatiy, nothing could touch it for yield and winter hardiness and very resistant to mildew , swedes could not take any weed competition and prolonged dry weather was a big issue on yield , more so than Fodder beet , I would expect direct drilling would help with weeds, a thing I never tried

i plant lomond have had good results planted up to 1000 foot above

 

[Kevtherev]

i plant lomond have had good results planted up to 1000 foot above

Bred in Scotland

 

[ISCO]

0.5kg is plenty imo, IF they all germinate, but very thin if you lose many. Always a bit of a gamble.

Several of us drilling beet for grazing locally are drilling as low a seed rate as the contractor can go, which is about 40k seeds per acre (an acre pack contains 50k seeds). DM yield/ha has been shown to be higher from fewer, bigger beet, and I can’t see why any other root crop would be different.

I assume that is 0 .5 kg per acre.
We drilled ours a lot heavier than that 2 years ago as contractor advised us to but they were too thick.

 

[Northern territory]

0.5kg is plenty imo, IF they all germinate, but very thin if you lose many. Always a bit of a gamble.

Several of us drilling beet for grazing locally are drilling as low a seed rate as the contractor can go, which is about 40k seeds per acre (an acre pack contains 50k seeds). DM yield/ha has been shown to be higher from fewer, bigger beet, and I can’t see why any other root crop would be different.

That’s interesting, my dad always says that but modern ways are like growing sugar beet. Certainly always seems plenty of feed even when a bit gappy. It’s Terribly dry here, we are working down to drill our beet in next few days but I fear for it with nothing in the forecast. We had a crop failure two years ago with similar conditions to now, that’s the first time beet has failed us.

 

[neilo]

That’s interesting, my dad always says that but modern ways are like growing sugar beet. Certainly always seems plenty of feed even when a bit gappy. It’s Terribly dry here, we are working down to drill our beet in next few days but I fear for it with nothing in the forecast. We had a crop failure two years ago with similar conditions to now, that’s the first time beet has failed us.

Most UK agronomy advice on growing fodder beet is based on sugar beet, which is lifted in early season generally, rather than grazed through the winter. A lot of work is being done in NZ, on growing it for grazing, and utilising it better.

I put more N on last year, and later, splitting it over 3 doses, to grow more top. We had 3.5ac of surplus that we lifted in March and sold 40t of fresh beet/ac off that, as well as masses of leaf to clear up.

 

[ploughman1963]

We have had great success in mixing calcifert with seeds to counteract the acids from decaying turf

 

[Derrick Hughes]

Guy on the right was a close friend , won every local show with farm produce for many years