Forage Crops

Al R

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
West Wales
10 acre of swedes going in ( would’ve been beet but need the ground till late May for ewes and lambs) 25 acre turnips at home then around 40-50 acre of turnips/green crop on rented ground.
Crop was halved last year due to multiple storms in November and even with a dry winter still went through near 70 acre of turnips in 3-4 weeks with 4 day breaks.
always try and do as much green crop/grass as possible and managed 3 years with no concentrate brought in now 👍🏻
 

Jonny B88

Member
Location
ballykelly. NI
First time brassica user here. Hopefully if weather allows will get 25 acres of interval hybrid in soon on cereal stubbles with the idea of grazing it july/august and then sow out in a herbal mix. Will also sow out a further 24 acres after wb into herbs and have no more arable on this farm for the first time in a very long time. Idea being to be able to stockpile/defer grass in back end for extended grazing and also semi reliable stockpile to turn out onto.

Had thought of mixing hybrid with italian ryegrass but basically doubling the price and only getting one grazing before reseed put pay to that.
 

scholland

Member
Location
ze3
Did you DD your beet again?
Yes sort of but with a "strip till" type tine pulled through first where required
20220503_150047.jpg
 

Al R

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
West Wales
Because it works?
It doesn’t with maize. My only experience of growing a lot of beet was costing near £800/acre to grow! Everything thrown at it, 22 passes from plough to harvester. I wouldn’t want to risk that sort of costs giving a semi crop because I skipped £60/acre. Every DD maize crop I’ve seen has been mediocre and the plough based system in the other half of the fields gave double the crop. Never seen DD beet though hence why I was asking, you don’t see many on the fens growing DD sugar beet 🤷🏻‍♂️
 

neilo

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Montgomeryshire
Expensive seed and crop to grow why try and save the £30/acre ploughing and £30/acre cultivations to not get a decent seedbed?
Not having a dig but DD maize is the same…

I don’t plough before beet here, but do cultivate down to plough depth if there are compaction issues (as there are in this year’s field). Twice through with an ancient Spring Tine/Chisel plough then twice over with the Shortdisc.👍

Last year the fields had better soil structure below, so precision drilled into land that had Shortdisc over twice. We lifted 3.5ac of surplus and sold 40t/ac off it, so I don’t think yield was restricted in any way.
 

Limcrazy

Member
First time brassica user here. Hopefully if weather allows will get 25 acres of interval hybrid in soon on cereal stubbles with the idea of grazing it july/august and then sow out in a herbal mix. Will also sow out a further 24 acres after wb into herbs and have no more arable on this farm for the first time in a very long time. Idea being to be able to stockpile/defer grass in back end for extended grazing and also semi reliable stockpile to turn out onto.

Had thought of mixing hybrid with italian ryegrass but basically doubling the price and only getting one grazing before reseed put pay to that.
Not many men brave enough to stop growing cereals and grow grass instead. Would crop every acre if land was suitable.
 

neilo

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Montgomeryshire
Here: 12ac of beet getting drilled next week. 18ac of Protaplus + red clover (+ Appin turnip maybe?) into sprayed off pp going in in June, 10ac of Massif maincrop turnips in late June/early July, then 26ac of stubble turnips to be DD’ed after winter barley is off.

Depending on how things are looking, I may DD some turnips in late after Spring Barley too.
 

neilo

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Montgomeryshire
Not many men brave enough to stop growing cereals and grow grass instead. Would crop every acre if land was suitable.

Why? Cropping has a lot of inflated costs tied up in it currently, and the opportunity to go pop as quickly as it has jumped.

I’m happy to carry on with a similar mix of cropping here, in order to spread the (considerable) risk. Income from sheep has carried the small scale cropping enterprise here for enough years, so I’m not about to lurch one way or t’other.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

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    Votes: 79 42.0%
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    Votes: 66 35.1%
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    Votes: 30 16.0%
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    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 7 3.7%

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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