Fathen in silage

Y Fan Wen

Member
Location
N W Snowdonia
I had a field of swedes that were grown as ‘unsprayed roots’ for Glastir, which got rather taken over by fathen. It was 13ac of thick, dense, 6’ high fathen (surprisingly, with ahalf decent crop of swedes in the bottom). This field was right by the footpath and several people asked me what the crop was. Quinoa was my usual answer.🤣
How did you utilise the field after the growth phase?
 

neilo

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Montgomeryshire
How did you utilise the field after the growth phase?

I cut swaths through it with either a topper, or a hedge cutter if it was on, in order to put electric fences through it. It wa# all grazed by store lambs in 4-5 day blocks. It kept them well enough, although not as well as a decent crop of swedes would have.

The following year it was in Spring Barley that did around 4t/ac, which I have certainly never achieved before! Presumably that means a lot of nutrients were left behind after, and the extensive rooting of the fat hen will have done no harm at all.

The weeds would have been sorted if it hadn’t been in Glastir ‘unsprayed roots’, where I was paid to create habitat.
 

nails

Member
Location
East Dorset
I have never had any lasting damage from Fat hen or redshank in re seeds. Just cut it off it will be gone next year. It is not like it is poisonous.
 

som farmer

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
somerset
bacon weed round here, came in with the pigfood, or, so i was told, expert at growing it, the only good thing about it, is, it acts like a good cover crop, it topped off, plenty of green manure, redshank, on the other hand, tends to knock the grass back,
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
I have posted before, but a friend made some red clover silage a couple of years ago, that was full of Fat Hen (just for you @Agrivator ;) ) and it was analysed by ADAS as we were having a sheep group meeting on nutrition there. It was very high in energy and protein (over 20% CP iirc), his in-lamb ewes were loving it and getting far to fat on it. He did have to fork a lot of stalks out though.
My home farm used to have a major "problem" with it, easiest covercrop ever. Just grub up the swede paddock after the ewes had levelled the crop, put the cattle in to tidy up the bulbs, and it would magically appear.

We used to lamb about a month behind everyone else in the district and have most of the lambs away while the neighbours were still trying to coax theirs fat - because Dad's lambs had unlimited tucker as they got through the fat hen crop.

It's cracking feed, main thing is it brings them on almost a bit fast and you can lose a few overspec if you don't watch them. I'd consider growing it as a proper crop TBH
 

ImLost

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Not sure
My home farm used to have a major "problem" with it, easiest covercrop ever. Just grub up the swede paddock after the ewes had levelled the crop, put the cattle in to tidy up the bulbs, and it would magically appear.

We used to lamb about a month behind everyone else in the district and have most of the lambs away while the neighbours were still trying to coax theirs fat - because Dad's lambs had unlimited tucker as they got through the fat hen crop.

It's cracking feed, main thing is it brings them on almost a bit fast and you can lose a few overspec if you don't watch them. I'd consider growing it as a proper crop TBH
Kind of what I was getting at earlier @Kiwi Pete ,if it grows itself well without the problems of trying to establish a "proper crop" then why not let it flourish on a farm?

Does anyone know where I can get a few kgs of fat hen seed?
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
Kind of what I was getting at earlier @Kiwi Pete ,if it grows itself well without the problems of trying to establish a "proper crop" then why not let it flourish on a farm?

Does anyone know where I can get a few kgs of fat hen seed?
Precisely.... a bit like trying to grow chicory while killing docks, seems like a great way to burn money. Just grow bigger weeds on purpose and keep your cash safe
 

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Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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