I agree, it’s a tricky balance. Higher yielding first wheats are one of the best margins here but they don’t occur without either a break or a fallow.....That's certainly generally true, Flat 10.
But there may be certain business circumstances, one such example being revealed by the question titled in this thread, where margins can be increased by reducing turnover a bit.
Of course, had that ever been an easy option to adopt, even Carillion might have done it.
How many farms are using voluntary / unpaid fallow in their rotation?
- Thread starter Feldspar
- Start date
By not taking financial insurance in the form of options, you've created your own price risk management financial product by staying long and/or selling physical grain forward at fixed prices instead. Just saying.
- Location
- Lincolnshire.
By not not buying financial products I am not enriching the capitalist rats in the city sewers. Just saying. #keeptheredflagflyinghere.By not taking financial insurance in the form of options, you've created your own price risk management financial product by staying long and/or selling physical grain forward at fixed prices instead. Just saying.
Mr Charisma
Member
- Location
- stratford on Avon
2012 harvest ,,,,,,, crap
2013 harvest ,,,,,,, 100% SBarley , ground had been sort of ploughed to level out combine ruts ,,,,needed to have the SB for the straw so no break crop planted that year , but still crap
2014 harvest ,,,,,,, still struggled because all wheat was a second cereal
Took 3 harvests to get back on track
Y Fan Wen
Member
- Location
- N W Snowdonia
Forgive my ignorance as a mountain farmer who doesn't own any cultivation kit, in post 62, why do you sow 'spring' oats after the combine?
90hp farming
Member
Spring oats should develop more in the short growing window that is the second half of august + September.
Same here.
How many more times, Mr Charisma, does one have to suggest to our site masters here that the "unlike" button should be available to us without having previously pressed the "like" ?
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Feldspar
Member
- Location
- Essex, Cambs and Suffolk
I don't think Mid Tier pays £600/ha for cover crops unless I have missed something.
Good point, I was misreading my notes. Something about bird cover being worth 640/ha...not quite the same thing.
But to go back to your OP...a well vegetated fallow might well pay better than a poor spring break if you can grow a cheap wheat behind. That is Crusoe in the picture, drilled rather later than we intended. Lots of blw at cotyledon stage (feeding the pigeons atm) but hardly a blackgrass in sight. Happy days
Feldspar
Member
- Location
- Essex, Cambs and Suffolk
I find it difficult to make a judgement on how much difference a good cover cropped fallow will make on costs such as black-grass herbicides throughout the rest of the rotation. Certainly we have had some pretty poor spring bean crops that have been really quite dirty for black-grass despite quite a spend that have been the backward step in the rotation.
I don't think that cover crops are the cure for blackgrass at all. Sure, you'll get some competition & the establishment of the CC ought to trigger germination of the weeds too but I think the whole allelopathy thing is over rated. If you can do your disturbance for the CC, destroy it with glyphosate then ultra low disturbance sow the following cash crop to avoid another flush whilst using the root channel of the CC then you might be ok. The cover crop is there for improving the soil - any weed suppression is a bonus, not the purpose IMO.
Feldspar
Member
- Location
- Essex, Cambs and Suffolk
I might be tempted to shallow cultivate, let it green up with volunteers and black-grass overwinter, then spray off in May and then plant an early cover crop which should get pretty big by autumn time. Bad idea?
Sounds good, if you're not chasing compliance with the rules of CS or EFA that restricts what you can do to prevent the weeds seeding. I'd be tempted to sprinkle a bit of extra seed on the ground in the autumn to boost the green cover, hold nitrates, feed the worms etc but not at the expense of providing a good BG growing medium. I've seen a lot of blackgrass growing in May sown maize so I think you'd need to be prepared to abort the cover early if the BG went to ear.
Edited to add; I'm not a true believer in worm food cover crops as a priority over a horrid weed like blackgrass. I am ready to believe that what conservation ag does is provide an enviroment that min till weeds like BG do not like but I think you've got to get your house mostly clean first.
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yellow belly
Member
- Location
- south west lincolnshire
plant a cover crop claim covercrop on stewardship then destroy cover crop post mid jan and plant a spring cereal crop on low imput cereal protocol for stewardship harvest
then plant a cover crop followed by spring beans or linseed
the above will return a margin provided there is sensible cost control with labour and machinery taylered to the work carried out not the high costs of a wheat rape rotation
then plant a cover crop followed by spring beans or linseed
the above will return a margin provided there is sensible cost control with labour and machinery taylered to the work carried out not the high costs of a wheat rape rotation
I'm coming round to the view that blackgrass isn't horrid at all (it is after all a plant, not an emissary of Satan), but, as the vicar would say, it is a sign from the lawd God almighty that we are farming the wrong way or what we modern people call an indicator species (also telling us we are farming the wrong way).
The land in the photo above had a lot of blackgrass on it when we sowed a multi-species cover crop . The cover didn't grow that well and got mullahed by the drill demos. However the blackgrass that survived looked properly unhappy, but seeded freely as we took our eye off the ball a bit. We sowed another cover the next year, this time it (the cover) grew rather better and wasn't hit by the drill demos. This is what we drilled this wheat into. There is next to no blackgrass to be seen. All we have applied is one glyphosate spray post drilling.
OK, a bit drastic taking land out of production for two years to get rid of some weeds. What I find interesting is that you do not need to get the bg to chit or bury the seeds eight inches down to get rid of them. Leave them on the surface and create an environment that doesn't suit them. They will disappear if you don't give them an easy ride. Sorry gone slightly off-topic...
They dont like an environment of Italian ryegrass, that's for sure.
- Location
- Somerset
I have had the mid - tier autunm cc and then i will be following that with spring sown overwinter bird cover/feed crop sown as late as possible to allow for bg control, then back to spring barley or oats .