Drilling anyone?

[Farmer Roy]

Err, the window has now closed for any planting for this season ( assuming we did get any rain )
Our warm season crops ( cotton, sorghum, mung beans etc ) are probably our most profitable in the long run but didn’t plant any this year & haven’t harvested any for 2 . . .

didn’t even plant any cool season crops ( wheat, barley, canola, chick peas, faba beans etc ) 2 years ago. Planted 300 ha of chickpeas last year, harvested 150 ha & only got a bit more than my seed back . . .

at the moment, with zero sub soil moisture ( all our management practices are aimed at conserving / maximising soil moisture - hence zero till being the default cropping system - and our crops are largely grown on stored moisture rather than in crop rainfall. Ideally like 1m if soil moisture before even considering planting . . . ) it is looking increasingly unlikely we will be planting any cool season crops this year either ( April - July ) Usually by this time of the year we would be getting that stored soil moisture amount, ready for our winter plantings . . .


so, at this stage I have already missed out on two summer seasons ( arguably our main season ) & probably three or four winter seasons . . .

yeah, I’m not “drilling” yet either . . .

 

[Farmer Roy]

Just thinking if late drilled WW doesn’t vernalise is there any use for what ever does grow? Ie biodigester?

hay ?

a lot of “failed” cereal crops here that have any bulk in them are generally baled . . .

or grazed . . .

 

[Farmer Roy]

vernalisation I read once was below a certain temperature for a certain number of days not as low as some might think

although the bulk of our wheat crop is what you would call “spring” wheats ( even if we plant them in autumn / winter ) we do also have early season “winter” varieties that vernalise . . .

 

[Kiwi Pete]

hay ?

a lot of “failed” cereal crops here that have any bulk in them are generally baled . . .

or grazed . . .

A lot of crops are grazed so that they DON'T fail: ie fail to produce a profit, fail due to fungus etc

Rather than washing each leaf, diseased leaves are just removed, which drastically cuts both seed and input spend

 

[Farmer Roy]

Haha - yeah, we don’t really do fungal sprays on wheat either . . .

 

[Flat 10]

Sounds diabolical out there Roy. You have my sympathies. However why don’t you use it as an opportunity to come over here and have a go and educate us? We clearly need a kick up the arse

 

[Devil's advocate]

im not so sure about soil temps being up at least not here ,think all the rain has cooled it down deeper as my snowdrops arnt flowering and they usually do in jan and daff leaves are only just getting above a couple of inches

Do snowdrops need to vernalise like Roobarb. The Roobarb is late & that is inside heated sheds. I'm told this is due to the mild Autumn.

 

[Farmer Roy]

Sounds diabolical out there Roy. You have my sympathies. However why don’t you use it as an opportunity to come over here and have a go and educate us? We clearly need a kick up the arse

haha - Id love to go back to the UK for a look, can’t afford the air fares & I need to get a full time job here to pay the bills at home . . .

otherwise I’d be off like a shot ?

 

[Mr Charisma]

Went for a walk with agronomist yesterday just so he got a feel for conditions around here.

Winter wheat seed will be having a holiday this year and will be coming out in the autumn

 

[Brisel]

Haha - yeah, we don’t really do fungal sprays on wheat either . . .

Yeah, the cockys I worked for gleefully told me that as I was adding Actellic organophosphate insecticide to the wheat I was loading into road trains because it was crawling with bugs

 

[Bossfarmer]

ive heard the long term forecast for next 3 months is nothing but storms? going to be tricky to get any spring crops in

 

[ifindoubtflatout]

we got another 50 acre of WW in up here in Durham yesterday. Stuff we are sowing is okay til Mid Feb.... Spotlight.
hoping this will be a reasonable dry week ( though it rained last night) and get a bit more in
Thoughts change every day dependent on loads of factors.... I still think Oop North on heavy land Feb sown WW will pay better than SW or SB
Time will tell

 

[Bossfarmer]

https://www.express.co.uk/news/weat...nge-snow-storm-map-met-office-weather-warning

 

[Kiwi Pete]

dry

Cheers lloyd, I think you dumped some rain on us with your comment!

Will get you to say "dry" again next summer, the past 48 hours has thrown 193mm on us, even the ducks have gone out to sea (but I put 4 in the freezer before they left )

 

[teslacoils]

I would respectfully suggest, being a few days at least, pessimistic with those dates, as it's a pretty mild winter, and seems to be continuing that way, i get the feeling that average temps are up fair bit with regards to things like vernilisation

https://www.express.co.uk/news/weat...nge-snow-storm-map-met-office-weather-warning

Be a cold day in hell before I believe weather reports in the express.

 

[Wombat]

Drilled on sat

 

[Renaultman]

we got another 50 acre of WW in up here in Durham yesterday. Stuff we are sowing is okay til Mid Feb.... Spotlight.
hoping this will be a reasonable dry week ( though it rained last night) and get a bit more in
Thoughts change every day dependent on loads of factors.... I still think Oop North on heavy land Feb sown WW will pay better than SW or SB
Time will tell

Totally agree, holding out for another day then having a go at my last bit. Very big gamble but HSS so not a huge cost to try

 

[4course]

that we left overnight has been sown this morning and drillman reckons its that dry it could well need rolling ,ffs . Just moved into the next lump then if field finished tonight off to yams at york tommorrow so as not tempted to force a couple of headlands .Plus leaving the last lump destined for winter wheat some wetter ground for another day or two , that is until the plans change again. Having just seen wombat,s thumb in an above pic it would seem hes having a nailbiting time of it as well, ho ho

 

[goodevans]

I'm looking forward to reading all the harvest reports on these Feb sown fields compared to mauled autumn drilling.we are hoping to get some latitude dressed Costello in here later on in week,have been told not to expect good germination if left till next autumn

 

[Boysground]

Ploughing today for more wheat. The cold wind is drying it really quickly. It’s chalk soil and had a heap of muck on it last week. If all goes to plan drill Thursday or Friday.

bg