warksfarmer
Member
Did 12 years of solstice. Never had it tested. Presently on 6 years of Edgar and Crusoe which we haven’t used seed treatments on either or had tested.
We’ve also tried a mixture of milling wheats with no detrimental effects.
Farm saved seed
- Thread starter FarmerBruce
- Start date
Did 12 years of solstice. Never had it tested. Presently on 6 years of Edgar and Crusoe which we haven’t used seed treatments on either or had tested.
We’ve also tried a mixture of milling wheats with no detrimental effects.
Chae1
Member
- Location
- Aberdeenshire
Its funny loose smut seems to be a major issue in spring barley speaking to people who run seed dressers.
warksfarmer
Member
We took spring barley to year 5 and that was straight off the heap uncleaned or dressed.
ollie989898
Member
That would not suit the £ agenda of the breeders I suspect.
- Location
- the brecks norfolk
We're on year 6(I think) of spring barley and it's all honky dory.
Years ago you could buy blends, I think it was Dalgety IIRC
- Location
- South Notts
In theory keep saving for as many years as you like so long as varietal and special purity tests OK and it’s disease free each year. You can test for seed borne disease, plenty of people offer the service but I would argue why would you run the risk when the single purpose dressing costs so little? Regarding vigour, farm saving won’t make a difference as vigour is mainly lost when seed is stored too long. I would look to save no more than 2-3 seasons and buy some new seed in periodically to try new varieties and clean up any off types.
- Location
- South Notts
Youre only testing 100 seeds out of millions. £20/mt or £4/ha seems a cheap insurance to me.
More than 100 seeds and it should be a representative sample from a bulk of grain. You pay for your dressing and extra bought in seed. I'll pay a fraction of that. Each to their own.
It would be far cheaper to blend your own! You know what ingredients you want, so just make your own blend. @Simon Chiles , @Simon C and others have deliberately mixed a few varieties & run the blend for a few generations.
farmerm
Member
- Location
- Shropshire
I would probably want to include some off royalty, off sale varieties.. the gene pool in the recommended list isn't diverse enough...
Sinclair magil ? did many years ago
- Location
- northampton
I grow a group 1 blend of nelson skyfall crusoe has been home saved for 4 years now this is the first year of having no seed dressing but clean it ourself as I think the seed dressers are a potential source of black grass and wild oat seeds
SilliamWhale
Member
Do you mind showing me your calculations so I can work out seeds/ metre when I have my germ test back ?
SilliamWhale
Member
I used to do it like that now I just put enough down to make sure I have a crop across teh field
You should have an open day , I'd come .