- Location
- Lincolnshire
Doesn't help that winter osr plants have been bred to be palatable to everything, and have pee poor vigour. Even compared with the plants of ten years ago like Excel, modern ones seem......like the feeble cousin.
Is there any skill in growing an economically viable crop of OSR?
- Thread starter richard hammond
- Start date
Isn’t he saying look how neonics don’t really work here...
Also cold doesn’t really matter when the insects survive it.
Jo28
Member
- Location
- East Yorks
I'm not sure if thats quite true. osr was thought to be introduced by the romans but from limited knowledge the growing of osr gradually died out before coming back a bit in the middle ages from what I've read. So to say it was grown successfully for over 2000 years seems at the very least dubious as for one it wasn't grown constantly for 2000 years and secondly how do we know they grew it successfully?
Clearly our intensive osr rotations have not helped the situation but to say neonics have nothing at all to with the loss of osr in UK is clearly not fully correct. It is surely a whole range of things including the way its been farmed and the loss of neonics that have combined to lead to this point. Climate change cant have helped either with much warmer years and very few winter frosts.
I'm not one of the previous generations that you refer to as idiots but i think to call people idiots for what was done in the past is ridiculous. Everything is easy with hindsight but you have to do what is deemed right and hopefully profitably at the time. Farmers may look back on us in 30/40 years time and think that we are idiots, who knows.
Lastly, a question I've been wondering for a while is, why have all the pests become resistant to the insecticides that we use but the beneficial's have not? You would have thought that eventually with the large increase of flea beetle eventually there would be a large increase in its predators?
Exactly, I am open minded and don’t use much insecticide at all, but a lot of agchem wasn’t introduced just to make money, there was a need for it and it worked.
Devil's advocate
Member
- Location
- Posh side of Barnsley
Grandad born 1904
Used to tell me how hard it was to grow swedes pre mercury, ddt, aldrin etc. Quite often drill them 4 times & singling too so 10 times as much seed as needed plants.
- Location
- Lincolnshire
My Scottish grandfather had no problem with swedes until people starting growing brassicas of various types that lived all the way through the winter and into the next summer such as OSR. These carried the pest through to the next year whereas many forage crops were traditionally eaten off by the end of winter and presumably the larvae destroyed.
This goes back to what @Blaithin said above about the benefit of spring crops that are only in the ground for a short time. There is less chance of pests completing a life cycle and also of the. carrying virus from one year to another.
Winter crops are a dirty option in many ways and bad for hygiene, only propped up and made possible by lashings of agrochemicals. No wonder the big concerns push them. Without herbicides winter crops would be impossible here. Maybe telling us something.
I worry also about all these cover crops and two year legume mixes carrying diseases forward. Winter used to be a good disinfectant. Not so sure now.
This goes back to what @Blaithin said above about the benefit of spring crops that are only in the ground for a short time. There is less chance of pests completing a life cycle and also of the. carrying virus from one year to another.
Winter crops are a dirty option in many ways and bad for hygiene, only propped up and made possible by lashings of agrochemicals. No wonder the big concerns push them. Without herbicides winter crops would be impossible here. Maybe telling us something.
I worry also about all these cover crops and two year legume mixes carrying diseases forward. Winter used to be a good disinfectant. Not so sure now.
shakerator
Member
- Location
- LINCS
I read that the breeding stock for modern double low canola comes from half seeds checked for their low glucosinalates, germinated and grown on.
- Location
- Shropshire
Could be, I may have misinterpreted.
I thought he was saying that where neonics are not used in Canada (I have no idea whether they are or not) the crop yields well. ie cultural controls work.
Could be wrong though
- Location
- Shropshire
Fantastic post.
- Location
- Lincolnshire
How many? sorry....keyword alert.
100ac of temporary grass. Just send them over. Not exactly an archaeological wonderland. How many acres can someone do in a day?
Neonics are used everywhere here.
Some farmers may decide not to use them because there are years they don’t seem particularly effective but probably statistically most canola is seed treated with it.
Seed treatments are the only neonics we’re allowed to usr I believe.
There is one type of flea beetle that is less bothered by seed treatment than others because of how it eats. But any stress in the seedlings like frost or lack of moisture and it seems most bets are off. The best protection is have the seedlings take off fast so they outgrow the damage. If I remember right that scenario gains only a 10% seedling loss to insects or something.
TheEarlOfMoray
Member
- Location
- Morayshire
Anyone ever used home saved hybrid seed? Think I am a bag short of new seed for next year and thought I’d try some off the heap just too finish off. Know people say not to do it but thought I might give it a try. Volunteers seem to grow fine
It will grow but don't trust those who say it will grow fine. It really doesnt yield well.
- Location
- Lincolnshire
I am fairly sure that a good autumn seedbed and rapid autumn growth here gets the seedlings away from grazing danger here even without insecticide. The problem is then the egg laying into the stems in the autumn. By the following spring the larvae are hollowing out the stems and the crop yields very poorly.
I would imagine that flea beetles will lay eggs in spring sown rape stems but do larvae get big enough to do serious damage or complete their live cycle? In any case, if they have to over winter as adults rather than larvae tucked away inside a stem then surely it makes it harder for the beetles generally?
So maybe if we all switch to spring OSR we would reduce the cabbage stem beetle problem and dilute the later pollen beetle problem we have here with the small amount of spring OSR that is presently grown.
I like the idea.
- Location
- Shropshire
I wasn’t just posting about neonics. Canada has much harder winters and the OSR grown there would not be sown until spring.
ollie989898
Member
It's a big shame because OSR gave a lovely entry to wheat and barley gave a lovely entry to OSR but the fact is that with no chemical control of flea beetle, and the loss of a lot of other actives, the days of the WW/WB/OSR rotation were probably numbers years ago.
It was a major boon for the big agrochemical companies because growing it meant you were largely stuck on the path to big spends, residual herbicides, big seed costs and like the only the end product was highly valuable and made it pay.
Too late we have discovered that it wasn't really sustainable.
It was a major boon for the big agrochemical companies because growing it meant you were largely stuck on the path to big spends, residual herbicides, big seed costs and like the only the end product was highly valuable and made it pay.
Too late we have discovered that it wasn't really sustainable.
- Location
- North Wales
Did anyone try grazing wosr with sheep to reduce larvae numbers in the stem? Did it work?