Is osr really worth it ?

[Clive]

WW / OSR rotation seems to be the mainstay of most uk arable farms

Every time the wisdom of this is questioned the defence is always that its gross margin just can't be beaten by any alternative ?

Is this really the case ?

Take years like this into account with high % lost, slugs, pigeons, silly seed costs, high N use, high AG chem spend etc

Put these years into the average and is it's AVERAGE gross margin REALLY that good ?

Are uk farmers being encouraged to grow it because as break crops go it just happens to sell an awful lot of inputs ?

I have reduced acreage based on my move to direct drilling and a need for spring cropping as a result but I'm seriously considering further reductions to the area I grow and replacement with yet a higher % of more reliable, cheaper to grow spring cropping

 

[Jim Bullock]

Clive
Many of the really innovative farmers (Simon C ) have given up growing OSR...We might continue growing a bit of Spring rape but that will be all. The winter crop has as you say become far too expensive to grow and has always been our most risky crop...In our area yields have been on the decline for the last decade...Ok we get the odd crop that might just yield over 4 tons/ha but in most cases its nearer to 3 tons/ha and if crop failures were taken into account I would'nt mind betting that the figure might well be sub 2.5 tons/ha...

 

[Feldspar]

WW / OSR rotation seems to be the mainstay of most uk arable farms

Every time the wisdom of this is questioned the defence is always that its gross margin just can't be beaten by any alternative ?

Is this really the case ?

Take years like this into account with high % lost, slugs, pigeons, silly seed costs, high N use, high AG chem spend etc

Put these years into the average and is it's AVERAGE gross margin REALLY that good ?

Are uk farmers being encouraged to grow it because as break crops go it just happens to sell an awful lot of inputs ?

I have reduced acreage based on my move to direct drilling and a need for spring cropping as a result but I'm seriously considering further reductions to the area I grow and replacement with yet a higher % of more reliable, cheaper to grow spring cropping

The argument depends on the claim that other crops planted in the spring are indeed more reliable. On high % clay soils which do not warm or dry quickly in the spring using conventional farming techniques I'd be disinclined to believe this. Perhaps with some cover crops and no till the situation would be different.

 

[Clive]

Clive
Many of the really innovative farmers (Simon C ) have given up growing OSR...We might continue growing a bit of Spring rape but that will be all. The winter crop has as you say become far too expensive to grow and has always been our most risky crop...In our area yields have been on the decline for the last decade...Ok we get the odd crop that might just yield over 4 tons/ha but in most cases its nearer to 3 tons/ha and if crop failures were taken into account I would'nt mind betting that the figure might well be sub 2.5 tons/ha...

I can see me going this way Jim - maybe not dropping it all together but a seriously reduced area would be much easier to manage through winter and maybe I could a more consistent yield and gm as a result ?

I think a lot of farmers will be questioning the fundamentals of how they farm after the last 12 months ! I predict big changes ahead

 

[jon9000]

The trade love osr, the big agronomy companies sell the seed mainly hybrid so you can't home save, trace elements, chemicals, slug pellets, desiccants and all the snake oils that go with it, and don't forget if you use all this stuff you'll do 2 tonnes to the acre.

Personally intend to cut back our acerge by 20%, however it is still a very good crop, and can been grown very cheap, homesaved seed, one pass establishment, one fungicide.

 

[B&B Pig Man]

I have only just started growing osr.
Hasn't been grown on the farm for 25 years!

I'm only growing once every 6 years though.

WW / WW / WOSR / WW / WW / Spr Beans

( although all the wheats are going to be changed to Barley! )

Idea is that the risk of the break crops is split between autumn and spring - one of them usually does well.

The WOSR is also HEAR rape - mainly just to add some margin to it!

 

[Feldspar]

I can see me going this way Jim - maybe not dropping it all together but a seriously reduced area would be much easier to manage through winter and maybe I could a more consistent yield and gm as a result ?

I think a lot of farmers will be questioning the fundamentals of how they farm after the last 12 months ! I predict big changes ahead

Hmm, if it's worth it to grow 5 acres of rape then it ought to be worth growing 500 acres assuming you can deal with the increased risk (remembering that volatility goes both ways). If you're struggling to keep the pigeons off then employ casual short term labour to do the job for you. That's what a few of the larger estates near us are doing. I think it's important to guard against going to far down the route of reduced inputs. Go too far and you'll have the whole farm in grass.

 

[SilliamWhale]

Its an early harvest, kerb is a brilliant herbicide and it feels a like a big cheque when you sell it.

 

[jon9000]

As a farmer we all suffer from only having the memory of one harvest when we decide the following years crops, varieties

 

[RBM]

Interesting topic, this, we rarely used to bother with a large area of second wheat as we used to spring crop a sensible acreage, 2nd wheats have performed really well,but think we potentially are not helping with blackgrass. Canary grass was a great low input high return spring crop for a few years for us, our osr is ok this year but on a reasonable proportion we have no crop on the first 2-3 metres round the outsides due to slugs that seem impossible to stop, we have planned (before this year) to return to a proportion of spring cropping to widen the osr rotation as much as anything and help with blackgrass control.

 

[Colin]

Seriously thinking of stopping osr. Lots of club root and the alternative break crops look ok financially. But osr helps to spread harvest even if it's only 150 acres out of 1600. Same reason I grow winter barley and some winter oats, spread of risk and harvest. But also too many crops in rotation that are at risk of sclerotinia. Vining peas a good break up here as well, so plenty to ponder.

 

[whitefox]

so what is this more reliabe spring cropping and if they are so reliable WHY havent you been growing them before now?

 

[franklin]

In a normal year OSR is fine. But when we are cutting wheat on the 20th September, and following it with OSR?

Over the last 5 years, wheat (only grow 1st wheats, and usualy with double breaks) has been the worst average margin. Not stopping growing that though.

Rape is a pain, but apart from this year it is a pain worth enduring.

 

[Jim Bullock]

Winter rape was a great crop (in the eighties) when we drilled it after winter barley (which is not now grown in this part of the UK as there is no market for it)or Soisson wheat... 17:17:17 in the seed bed combine drilled .... had a splash of Fusilade to clear up any barley(wheat) volunteers and perhaps the odd black-grass plant... a dose of Kerb in November/December....then 185 ks (150 units) of Nitram in March...shut the gate until July when it was sprayed off with Reglone....combined... and anything less than 3.75 tons/ha(30cwt/acre) was a disaster... Happy days!
I am sure slugs did not eat single low varieties like they do most of the double low types we have to grow today...perhaps our soils were more fertile than they are today....but we were burning the straw in those days which might just have help with winter OSR establishment..

 

[wobs]

Winter rape was a great crop (in the eighties) when we drilled it after winter barley (which is not now grown in this part of the UK as there is no market for it)or Soisson wheat... 17:17:17 in the seed bed combine drilled .... had a splash of Fusilade to clear up any barley(wheat) volunteers and perhaps the odd black-grass plant... a dose of Kerb in November/December....then 185 ks (150 units) of Nitram in March...shut the gate until July when it was sprayed off with Reglone....combined... and anything less than 3.75 tons/ha(30cwt/acre) was a disaster... Happy days!
I am sure slugs did not eat single low varieties like they do most of the double low types we have to grow today...perhaps our soils were more fertile than they are today....but we were burning the straw in those days which might just have help with winter OSR establishment..

..perhaps our soils were more fertile than they are today....but we were burning the straw in those days which might just have help with winter OSR establishment..

Very valid point that!

 

[Wombat]

Osr is a pia, it does produce a good margin some years but a lot of the time I find it is not good. It's more that it is a break crop and allows us back into wheat.

I think for us we just don't cut wheat early enough to get it in the ground and started, unless the season is with you.
Going to try some SB again due to the season so might give us a chance to drill osr around the 15th August see if that's any better

 

[franklin]

Well, next autumn I am growing OSR after fallow with a green manure on it. If that doesnt do the business then it will go. With the new feed wheats on the RL maturing 5 days after Claire, trying to get OSR in on heavy land after a big, wet wheat harvest is simply a waste of time and money. And this till-seeding lark is just as much a flash in the pan as everything else. This land really should be in permenant grass, but as it isnt, it is getting a good seeing to by Mr Plough and to hell with all these faddy and expensive min-till cultivators.

Then it will be continuous wheat / grass on the poo, wheat/oats/barley on the nice. Bale the lot and chuck some muck on.

 

[Fred]

We have just had this conversation , at the moment we are ww,wosr,ww,wosr, ww,spring beans , we arechanging to ww, spring wheat ,osr,ww, spring beans
we have 22 bangers out,

Rape is making all of us miserable .

its been in the ground for 7 months and is just existing

 

[Clive]

I wonder how many less ac of WW would have been lost to slugs this year if they were not in the WW/ SR rotation ?

 

[APJ]

We gave up with osr three years ago, moved to w/w,w/b w/o or s/o on light ground and w/w w/w w/o on heavier stuff only used 3bags of pellets last year! using some mustard after the winter barley to help our soil and seems to be working well!

 

[willy]

I know you can't react to just one bad year, but for me it has built up in the last couple. 1st we had verticillium wilt and now this year osr doesn't want to grow and has caused major slug problems in the following wheat. So as said before my rotation of ww, sw, s beans, ww, osr is where we are going.

I think we can drill 1st wheat when we want rather than waiting for black grass, so we can really push wheat yields and the same for osr. so over a 5 year average I think gross margin will not be to different to ww,osr rotation.

Also it fits in with dd

 

[B&B Pig Man]

I quite like the fact you're all stopping growing osr just as I'm starting!

Might lead to better prices!