How are you going to drill winter /spring crops when it drys up

We looking at a combi first direct onto the ploughing. Probably TripleK ( yes we still have one) or Carrier the Sumo’d stuff and then drill with whatever will travel. Who knows how we’ll get on
 

MrNoo

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Cirencester
Min tilled stuff unsure as yet, may get the plough out if it dries enough but was worked with a Subdisc and left quite rough. Think the weather will dictate, have a Vaddy or Combi to choose from. Talk of a cold Spring potentially in the weather forum.
 

MrNoo

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Cirencester
How do I not know about this weather forum :unsure:
Was on Twitter also about a SSW event, (sudden stratospheric warming event) which happens way up in the stratosphere, a slight delay then occurs and then the weather tends to change depending on where the downwelling occurs. It's quite involved and complex, I dont know all the in's and outs but on the Netweather forum there is a section devoted to this topic/science.
 

DrWazzock

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
I think on balance "direct drill" using Moore Unidrill. Some will be after failed OSR so it has already been mintilled in the autumn, has weathered and looks like it will go nicely direct with the Moore after spraying off.
The light land stubbles should direct drill well after spraying off. The heavy land stubbles which arent a huge area might be left as fallow. They were subsoiled while dry last summer so have taken the water well but are smothered in blackgrass and quite rough and lumpy. Maybe wait till dryish, spray off and power harrow and Moore. Ploughing them will bring up huge blocks that generally set like concrete or slump back to marzipan and power harrow into cobbles. I bet there will be another big chit of BG though, hence the fallow might be better. Not a big area. Might even pen it off and grass it down as its an utter pain every year and difficult to match in with the management of the adjacent sand in the same field.

Its all about conserving moisture, not bring up or creating huge clods and not ending up with it too unconsolidated or making it difficult to reconsolidate on the sand, so I am erring away from ploughing the later it gets.

Some folk locally are ploughing bits of light land a few acres at a time then Vaddying it in but it looks a right old clat to me with bits and pieces, undrilled headlands and part fields all over the shop. Could make timings difficult later and its rook feast time but at least they have some wheat in, presumably.

I am not worried yet. It will all be spring barley off the heap anyway. That was sort of my plan even before the wet autumn as cost of growing wheat with disappointing returns on droughty light land makes it marginally worthwhile and not a great payer in a dry year, making an annual mockery of the great big fungicide spend. Normally runs out of moisture in June whereas for some reason direct drilled spring barley seems to cope much better and with a fraction of the chemical spend. Spring oats are a waste of time though, again dry out and don't fill. Gramaphone needles.
 
Was on Twitter also about a SSW event, (sudden stratospheric warming event) which happens way up in the stratosphere, a slight delay then occurs and then the weather tends to change depending on where the downwelling occurs. It's quite involved and complex, I dont know all the in's and outs but on the Netweather forum there is a section devoted to this topic/science.

Wrote this on the Scottish thread on netweather:

Picture shows Lake Effect snow off the Moray Firth in December 2010 with -6c air From Norway over a warm North Sea at 10c
Northernlights

"I've lost count the number of times in the last 50 odd years we have been ready to sow crop in March in nice drying soils in March only to have a sudden fall of dry powdery snow.Springs are often snowier than winters up here.Sea temperatures are at thair lowest in Spring and N and E winds reach their highest frequency all the way to June and I have seen ice days in early April with blowing snow.Fresh snow often falls on the mountains round the Firth till June and last year in early May we had a .sharp air frost that knocked out all the apple blossom. One tree had only one apple on it this year.
Having joned this forum in 2005 I now understand its the break up of the polar vortex which spills lumps of cold air south over us in the spring when we can go from 21c one afternoon to -2c the following morning with dry snow falling. Putting cattle out to grass in the third week of April often tempts the weather gods to make it snow. Arctic outbreaks in spring are often characterised by showers of grauple too. Saw the result of a blizzard in the third week of May 1974 at Tomintoul burying sheep and lambs to be followed by doing agri exams 6 floors up in Aberdeen watching snow showers come in off the North Sea on the 1st of June 1975.
So lots of time for snow yet. July is probably the only visible snow free month on the mountains round here although I remember seeing pictures of lying snow on the Cairngorms around the 7th of July one year."

Massive cold contained in the Arctic just now ( January 2020) with Alaska NW Canada and Siberia recording below average temperatures so plenty of cold to disperse across the Northern Hemisphere with either an SSW or the normal break up of the polar vortex ( Low Pressure ) as the sun reappears and warms the upper atmosphere. This leads to cold air being released southwards in the Northern Hemisphere.
 
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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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