No, the new fallow is a rotational tool. It requires a bit of thought about tangible benefits for following crops, a bit like growing a pulse or grass break. In that any costs associated with the fallow are recouped and exceeded in the rest of the rotation. There is no difference between having land bare now and planted in August than ploughing land in October and leaving it until drilling in March. Infact, I would say better it bare now than over winter.
Fallowing as a Rotation Tool
- Thread starter Andy26
- Start date
- Location
- Limavady, Northern Ireland
So why not plant grass for 2 seasons take ground out of rotation altogether and then the land gets time to settle and then a better crop after it?
Surely grass is better than fallow?
Surely grass is better than fallow?
- Location
- Limavady, Northern Ireland
Well grass seed?
Provide silage feed to be sold in your area?
Why not bale the weed growth? Then burn?
Provide silage feed to be sold in your area?
Why not bale the weed growth? Then burn?
- Location
- Limavady, Northern Ireland
I know that I'm talking outside the box but is it possible?I could have almost silaged the blackgrass in some fields(
Surely harvested off the field would mean the weed seed would be reduced?
Suppose it would be, but it would come down to timing. All it would take would be a wet spell and not being able to get on and get it cleared and you end up with a field of seeding BG. And all you would be doing is harvesting a weed that you can fully kill with £6/acre of chemical.
- Location
- Limavady, Northern Ireland
But it's not killing it tho. It's developing a resistant to the chemical and will get to a point were nothing works.
Couch thrives in poor crop competition or fallow. Easily dealt with by glyphosate if well timed & repeated to exhaust the rhizomes.
Are you referring to glyphosate? No resistance recorded here. Applications post flowering or in hard water areas are less reliable with lower rates of less than 720 grammes/ha ai.
Feldspar
Member
- Location
- Essex, Cambs and Suffolk
This is a very ignorant question but if the blackgrass is flowering will a dose of glyphosate still stop it shedding viable seed?
Roundup use is quite a poor area of farmer practice. I always use a water conditioner, and never go under 1000g/ha ai. And it is the one product I will use flat fans for!
Ideally, it will be done before flowering. The old man and I are then have opposing views. Leave them in the sun, or get them mulched in.
All the "experts" recommend scratching a stale seedbed to encourage BG seed germination, but if you leave them on the surface they are more likely to be eaten by birds, plus you will do less harm to ground nesting birds.
I'd go for the stale seedbed personally. It's an opportunity to get flushes of seed already buried too. There's no resistance to steel!
Definition of an "expert" = Ex is a has-been & a "spurt" is just a drip under pressure