How many farms are using voluntary / unpaid fallow in their rotation?

Hi
I use fallow /stubbles as my EFA 5% and third crop too
Mostly choose small field at the extremities of the farm/off farm etc

Mostly Because of the cost saving of attempting to drill/work/combine/access 3 acre fields ,down a narrow lane under a railway bridge for example and the cost of lugging machinery and grain 8 miles back to the yard

When we digest the NEW shiney rules I'm considering 50% first wheat/50% fallow/stubbles. So long as figures add up Purely as my labour will have retired ( maybe) and I don't want to employ again and the son (should/could/ought to) have off farm income ( driving/gritting/welding etc) as a buffer/insurance against crap farming income

So cutting the workload in half and making the environment better/messier/healthier for some public money seems like a good Plan at this point in time

Would you plant some sort of fertility building cover crop in the fallow year? Just thinking that our heavy land might be quite sad if just left alone. Cheap cover crop planted when machinery not doing anything else (if that occurs) might be an option.
 

curlietailz

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Sedgefield
So far we have just left it as stubble
But heavy land is sad after and needs subsoiing
But we are looking at mustard/mix as a bit of nitrogen fixing /soil conditioning etc


Would you plant some sort of fertility building cover crop in the fallow year? Just thinking that our heavy land might be quite sad if just left alone. Cheap cover crop planted when machinery not doing anything else (if that occurs) might be an option.
 

Hindsight

Member
Location
Lincolnshire
The change in EFA rules prohibiting use of pesticides (glyphosate) during the EFA period make managing grass seed return very difficult. But why are (were) any of you using pulses / fallow for EFA. Buffer strips - in previous years had to be adjacent to watercourse but now more flexible adjacent to any boundary and hedges. Intrigued genuine question?

That way pulses and fallow can be treated as required with pesticides. .
 

curlietailz

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Sedgefield
Hindsight.....
We use fallow as a third crop so just piggy backed the EFA onto it
Our rotation until last year was wheat wheat (wheat) OSR and fallow made an easy third crop ( lazy I know)...... (But put in context.... My husband died and I took over the running of the farm, so it suited me to keep things as simple as possible while I got to grips with the task ! )
But last year we put barley in as a better entry to OSR so it's not important as we have 3 crops now
But it was so wet last autumn we didn't get fully sown up ( although all bought seed was used up) so have put fallow/stubble in again

Will have to look closely at the new rules as we feel a mustard mix will be better for the land in EFA / and margins/corners etc

Don't want to look at anything else ( beans peas grass linseed etc as it wouldn't easily fit in our operation
 

Hindsight

Member
Location
Lincolnshire
Hindsight.....
We use fallow as a third crop so just piggy backed the EFA onto it
Our rotation until last year was wheat wheat (wheat) OSR and fallow made an easy third crop ( lazy I know)...... (But put in context.... My husband died and I took over the running of the farm, so it suited me to keep things as simple as possible while I got to grips with the task ! )
But last year we put barley in as a better entry to OSR so it's not important as we have 3 crops now
But it was so wet last autumn we didn't get fully sown up ( although all bought seed was used up) so have put fallow/stubble in again

Will have to look closely at the new rules as we feel a mustard mix will be better for the land in EFA / and margins/corners etc

Don't want to look at anything else ( beans peas grass linseed etc as it wouldn't easily fit in our operation

Thankyou for reply. I am sorry to hear of your sad loss.

I had assumed that the use of fallow for EFA was because it was simple to complete the BPS form. I had a few similar forms but last spring I spent time entering the hedges / buffers to get them prepopulated for 2018. Be a quite straightforward exercise. In you position I would use margins and hedges to maximum for EFA, then top up with cover crops if required - you will probably find can get all EFA from the hedges and margins. That way you would not have any constraints placed on management of the covers.

But as ever, each to their own. I only asked as I am always interested when folk post on here different things to what I do in case I am either doing something wrong or missing a trick.

Best wishes,
 

bankrupt

Member
Location
EX17/20
Are there any farms out there on a wheat-fallow type rotation.

Not whole farm, Feldspar, but one heavy block here's been on wheat-fallow for 30 years.

Over that time it's been as profitable as anything else.

Big advantage is all work done in the dry and no damage to the drainage systems, so far.

Can't replicate this much further because lighter patches elsewhere on the farm always seem to attract drought to every-other-year cropping.

(y)
 
Last edited:

e3120

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Northumberland
Not whole farm, Feldspar, but one heavy block here's been on wheat-fallow for 30 years.

Over that time it's been as profitable as anything else.

Big advantage is all work done in the dry and no damage to the drainage systems, so far.

Can't replicate this much further because lighter patches elsewhere on the farm always seem to attract drought to every-other-year cropping.

(y)
Do you just leave it as stubble, and when/with what do you hit it next?
 

Y Fan Wen

Member
Location
N W Snowdonia
In college in Shropshire in the 60s, I learned that a fallow was gradually worked down to a seedbed from July onwards, when the long hot dry days (yes, I know) would dessicate weeds as they germinated. Can you still have fallows managed like that if you have them as part of your enviro scheme? As you can see, arable doesn't figure large in farming round here!
 

bankrupt

Member
Location
EX17/20
Do you just leave it as stubble, and when/with what do you hit it next?

Over-wintered stubble.

Sort out odd drain blow-ups when dry.

Re-mole as needed when SMD first suitable.

Add lime, sludge, dung as required.

Plough during first or second Test Match.

Work it over a bit during a dry harvest - if a wet one leave well alone.

Plant 20th September.
 

franklin

New Member
I use fallow for greening. It is not bare land. I use established, temporary grassland. Tidied up before the fallow period date and managed as per the rules it can still be of some use. I tend to use grass that is due to be ploughed out that season. Works well. Certainly better than beans.
 
I use fallow for greening. It is not bare land. I use established, temporary grassland. Tidied up before the fallow period date and managed as per the rules it can still be of some use. I tend to use grass that is due to be ploughed out that season. Works well. Certainly better than beans.

Would you do it even if you didn't have to for EFAs?
 

franklin

New Member
Doubt it. I dont think there is the benefit to be had from leaving heavy land bare, and I am thinking the best cover crop is grass. Once you start to find ways to make grass pay then the need for fallow falls away.

Argument would be different if my BPS covered my rent.

You could consider that the fallow would reduce the need for graminicides; reduce seed rates for OSR so you could make a case for an arable fallow. I have fallowed some in the past outsdie any scheme and it has pretty much eliminated blackgrass from that part of the farm.
 

bankrupt

Member
Location
EX17/20
if my BPS covered my rent.

Good point, static.

Fortunately, after years of frustration, we've finally got our rental equivalent down below the BPS.

However, adding 10% acreage, as has Feldspar, would put the rental equivalent round here up by £30/acre overall and kill our cashflow by £70/acre (after tax) on a 20yr mortgage.
 
Argument would be different if my BPS covered my rent.

Why would the economics of a fallow change depending on what rent you pay (assuming you are going to be farming the ground for some time)? If beans are profitable when paying a large rent, and if they are more profitable than fallow, then that should still be the same if paying no rent. What am I missing?
 

franklin

New Member
Rent, HP, insurance, etc are all fixed and sunk costs in year 1. They are to pay cropped or not. It is not true to say that a crop of beans making no profit is the same as a field of fallow making no profit. If the beans make no profit then at least I have paid my machinery and my wage.

Lets say beans at £150ac rent break even.
Beans at £80ac rent pay £70
Fallow at £150ac looses £60
Fallow at £80ac pays £10 (this year)

If my rent is £80 then I can fallow for a small profit. If my rent is £150 then I grow the beans as even if I make no cash profit then I accrue some of the cost of growing by paying off HP or attributing some of the land work to my labour.

The beans fix a tenner per acre nitrogen. The fallow certainly allows you to (for OSR) cut out the graminicide and probably half your seed rate. For wheat, depends on how good your beans weed control is.

Some people, when growing beans, might take the "fixed" nitrogen into account for working out the margin of their beans. I do this with any fallow but it's still a fairly drastic step to take.
 

KennyO

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Angus
@Feldspar was Just thinking about this (but slightly differently) when walking dog this morning.

Could we grass down a lot of our headlands and use them as our silage ground. Would make fields much more efficient for cropping as we could turn on grass but would make grazing difficult. We currently use fallow grass margins for our efa but different rules up here.
 

franklin

New Member
I have seen several farms where the headlands were grass and were mown and baled as schemes allowed.

With rules on spraying and spreading, and almost certainly soon for fert by watercourses it makes some sense to grass headlands wide enough to get a set of mowers around them.

I also believe that this is a historic practise in some counties where they would turn the horses on the grass for ploughing the arable, and then make hay from the margins.
 

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