Inter Row Hoe

How many people are using a hoe ?
Has it worked for you?
Is it the future for all crops , I know the vegetable growers have been through the pain of losing chemicals ?
 

Flat 10

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Fen Edge
I can and do hoe beet but it’s time consuming and the results are far from perfect. My hoe is ok but struggles with bigger crop canopies. It’s not easy to find the window with herbicide programs, weather delays etc
 

DrWazzock

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
I can and do hoe beet but it’s time consuming and the results are far from perfect. My hoe is ok but struggles with bigger crop canopies. It’s not easy to find the window with herbicide programs, weather delays etc
Maybe it does work, but I’m not convinced. I sometimes think that by breaking up the residual herbicide cap we just chit more weeds especially volunteer OSR. I have not used our tractor hoe in beet for 8 years but still use a hand hoe to tidy the row ends where they meet the headland and to take out occasional blackgrass plants. Our tractor hoe is pretty rubbish at blackgrass but I haven’t actually decided to sell it yet … just in case.
 

Bury the Trash

Member
Mixed Farmer
I suppose Some of the Maize, this year would be perked up possibly by a hoe, as it had a pretty hard start.

Trouble is its just another soil structure breaker downer., plus the extra weight of the tractor and in moist soils atm.
 

DrWazzock

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
Actually wish I’d applied Centurion Max now. What seemed like a trivial number of blackgrass plants now seems to have multiplied from nowhere. Thought I’d got them all earlier with hand hoe. Now back roguing and it’s slow going in places.😕
 
Maybe it does work, but I’m not convinced. I sometimes think that by breaking up the residual herbicide cap we just chit more weeds especially volunteer OSR. I have not used our tractor hoe in beet for 8 years but still use a hand hoe to tidy the row ends where they meet the headland and to take out occasional blackgrass plants. Our tractor hoe is pretty rubbish at blackgrass but I haven’t actually decided to sell it yet … just in case.

That maybe is the best thing about hoeing, more weed chitting.

After all in this area root crops used to be called fallow, because in effect it was a fallow but one that produced a crop.

Much less important to convential producers but organic farmers will want to get that weed seed bank as low as possible.

If you hoe before you see a weed, you never will.
 

ewald

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Mid-Lincs
I have hoed the beet this year to take out some large bindweed that had got away from the herbicide.
I wouldn't do it as routine - as the Dr has said, you lose the residual chem layer by hoeing.
Bit tedious with a 6 row system, if you lose concentration you can end up with bare patches......
 

Spud

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
YO62
Hoeing cereals baffles me. All that effort to grow a cover to supress weeds, drill with low disturbance...then disturb it with a how, undoing all the good, letting the light see the soil, chittting the weeds!!! (not to mention increased compaction, chance of runoff and burning fuel)
I'd sooner sow the cash crop a bit later when its warmer and gets away quicker, into a cover crop mulch with as little disturbance as I can. For winter cereals close row spacings, plenty seed and pre ems.

I've spent many an hour scruffling beet (still do) to know it aint the way forward here.
 

tw15

Member
Location
DORSET
As we are heading towards more environmentally sensitive production methods i can see interrow hoeing taking off especially wide row crops like maize etc . Technology we now have that can be used for hoeing has come leaps and bounds .
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

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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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