Looking grim .......

[Two Tone]

Generally growing fairly well here. Wheat after grass is knee high, wheat after oats not too far behind and triticale also knee high. Lucerne is also pushing knee high, surprising given the year!

Where do you farm?

 

[Will 1594]

@Two Tone
do you think your land is tight
we have a light silt and was onions a few years ago lifted dry pulled ld subsoiler through half and drilled as nice tilth . other half we rarved up with shzkerstor , it’s fine silt half rived up could see to line was better
bit like when you put side hoe through beet seems to let some air in mineralise bit n
the brain is thinking go do an acre with one of those spikey grass land spikers poke some holes in it and see if responds

 

[HarryB97]

Where do you farm?

By Oxford, not that far from you

 

[DrWazzock]

Anybody else finding that crops that have struggled to survive so far are just not moving, despite the lovely weather?

It’s like they have been ‘Bonsaid’!
They absolutely refuse to move and the drier soil surface makes them look even worse, not better.


I went to put some fertiliser on some grass fields today and had to abandon 2 because they are still like a bog.
Some of the grass hasn’t faired any better than the crop. It looks more like it would in a very wet and cold January.

Where my farmed deer have been grazing it, despite some poaching the grass is actually in better condition.

Same here. On any soils that have even the smallest amount of clay, they seem to be slumped and are holding growth back. The sand looks better and is way ahead. Not a lot we can do about it. Drying and cracking will help. It’s too wet underneath for any kind of mechanical remedial work as it would simply smear. Will probably attempt some kind of deeper tine loosening or ploughing in the autumn if it’s dry enough. If it’s cracked to depth by then I might just direct drill but lack of surface tilth and too much trash could thwart that plan. I image it will drain better ultimately if just left alone but what kind of trafficking will occur at harvest is yet to be seen.

 

[Two Tone]

@Two Tone
do you think your land is tight
we have a light silt and was onions a few years ago lifted dry pulled ld subsoiler through half and drilled as nice tilth . other half we rarved up with shzkerstor , it’s fine silt half rived up could see to line was better
bit like when you put side hoe through beet seems to let some air in mineralise bit n
the brain is thinking go do an acre with one of those spikey grass land spikers poke some holes in it and see if responds

Yes, absolutely the heavier clays are tight. They have done nothing but get tighter and tighter from the day they were drilled.
At no time has there been sufficient respite from the rain or any prolonged, cold enough frost to make any improvement to allow the crop any sort of chance to recover. The roots are sitting it very wet soil,without a chance of getting enough oxygen.

I have ordered a LD subsoiler for this Autumn, but of course it will need to be dry enough to use it.

A few things worry me:
Blackgrass, Blackgrass and Blackgrass!

We used to plough, then went into min-till. The Blackgrass exploded!
Went back to ploughing and got it back under control after about 5 years.

Went into DD, trying to use the least most disturbance so as not to wake up the Blackgrass.
We also use Hybrid Winter Barley as another string to our bow.
But found that Banbur was not strong enough to keep the Blackgrass under control.
Last Autumn, we went back to Crystal DFF + Avadex. But the Barley has been hammered so much by the wet weather that the Blackgrass has come back with avengance.

The now deceased owner of this farm was always tight on the money front, so I sold all the conventional equipment and didn’t replace my retired tractor driver. Therefore doing all the work myself.
So, if I wanted to go back into conventional, I’d need to buy a whole load of kit and get some extra labour again.

The prospect of both those doesn’t appeal!
However, unless we start getting some more normal weather again, we’ll have to.

It is so frustrating see others with plenty of labour and kit having much better looking crops than I do.

 

[DrWazzock]

Yes, absolutely the heavier clays are tight. They have done nothing but get tighter and tighter from the day they were drilled.
At no time has there been sufficient respite from the rain or any prolonged, cold enough frost to make any improvement to allow the crop any sort of chance to recover. The roots are sitting it very wet soil,without a chance of getting enough oxygen.

I have ordered a LD subsoiler for this Autumn, but of course it will need to be dry enough to use it.

A few things worry me:
Blackgrass, Blackgrass and Blackgrass!

We used to plough, then went into min-till. The Blackgrass exploded!
Went back to ploughing and got it back under control after about 5 years.

Went into DD, trying to use the least most disturbance so as not to wake up the Blackgrass.
We also use Hybrid Winter Barley as another string to our bow.
But found that Banbur was not strong enough to keep the Blackgrass under control.
Last Autumn, we went back to Crystal DFF + Avadex. But the Barley has been hammered so much by the wet weather that the Blackgrass has come back with avengance.

The now deceased owner of this farm was always tight on the money front, so I sold all the conventional equipment and didn’t replace my retired tractor driver. Therefore doing all the work myself.
So, if I wanted to go back into conventional, I’d need to buy a whole load of kit and get some extra labour again.

The prospect of both those doesn’t appeal!
However, unless we start getting some more normal weather again, we’ll have to.

It is so frustrating see others with plenty of labour and kit having much better looking crops than I do.

Those are the kind of dilemmas and challenges we are facing. We ploughed last summer but slumping and erosion have been bad although we got everything drilled to very varying degrees of success. Much min till or DD here and we also get the BG explosion. We will see what the summer does and go from there. Maybe a bit more down to grass. Maybe more barley.

 

[Two Tone]

Those are the kind of dilemmas and challenges we are facing. We ploughed last summer but slumping and erosion have been bad although we got everything drilled to very varying degrees of success. Much min till or DD here and we also get the BG explosion. We will see what the summer does and go from there. Maybe a bit more down to grass. Maybe more barley.

Yes it is a huge dilemma.
Today, I was asked to roll some grass for friend who has a horse schooling business.
I haven‘t got a flat roll, but conditions were absolutely perfect for using Cambridge rolls on it.
Couldn’t believe what a good job it was doing.
It is the first time something has gone right here for ages!
Put my playlist on from my mobile to the tractor radio and felt a lot better for a change.

I used @Warnesworth ’s (ex @Charlie Flindt ’s) Horsch C03 drill last autumn to drill the Winter Beans.
Had a lot of trouble with its ancient electronic drive and Weavings have now fitted their Artemis motor and RDS box drive system to it.
Mike, from Weavings is booked to come and set it up tomorrow to hopefully get 50 odd acres of Spring Barley in.

Forecast is sh!t again, but hopefully it will improve enough to go in Tuesday or Wednesday.

 

[Will 1594]

Yes, absolutely the heavier clays are tight. They have done nothing but get tighter and tighter from the day they were drilled.
At no time has there been sufficient respite from the rain or any prolonged, cold enough frost to make any improvement to allow the crop any sort of chance to recover. The roots are sitting it very wet soil,without a chance of getting enough oxygen.

I have ordered a LD subsoiler for this Autumn, but of course it will need to be dry enough to use it.

A few things worry me:
Blackgrass, Blackgrass and Blackgrass!

We used to plough, then went into min-till. The Blackgrass exploded!
Went back to ploughing and got it back under control after about 5 years.

Went into DD, trying to use the least most disturbance so as not to wake up the Blackgrass.
We also use Hybrid Winter Barley as another string to our bow.
But found that Banbur was not strong enough to keep the Blackgrass under control.
Last Autumn, we went back to Crystal DFF + Avadex. But the Barley has been hammered so much by the wet weather that the Blackgrass has come back with avengance.

The now deceased owner of this farm was always tight on the money front, so I sold all the conventional equipment and didn’t replace my retired tractor driver. Therefore doing all the work myself.
So, if I wanted to go back into conventional, I’d need to buy a whole load of kit and get some extra labour again.

The prospect of both those doesn’t appeal!
However, unless we start getting some more normal weather again, we’ll have to.

It is so frustrating see others with plenty of labour and kit having much better looking crops than I do.

that’s why we have a shed full of junk 4 drills 2 ploughs 3 power harrows etc etc , don’t think all put together would buy a new 4 m vaddy and bought one of those 3 m going to rip it apart to make a cultivator to pull behind shakerator
vario g land from heavy silt black , sh!t limestone clay right through to blowing sand that eats metal for fun
i would put an ld subsoiler through an acre or grass spiker
and go buy a plough

 

[Two Tone]

that’s why we have a shed full of junk 4 drills 2 ploughs 3 power harrows etc etc , don’t think all put together would buy a new 4 m vaddy and bought one of those 3 m going to rip it apart to make a cultivator to pull behind shakerator
vario g land from heavy silt black , sh!t limestone clay right through to blowing sand that eats metal for fun
i would put an ld subsoiler through an acre or grass spiker
and go buy a plough

Don’t tell anybody, but………..
I (personally) have got a plough.

It might just earn me some money again.
I just don’t have a Combi to drill with, which would be another vital part of the equation to follow it.

I kept the fecker just in case………..! (But it belongs to me, not the farm).
Maybe I should park it beside the Direct Drills as a warning to them.

 

[J 1177]

Patched some winter oats with spring today. Pig tine cultivator bounced over top. In end i had to pull it up with the smarsgard, weighted right up then combi drill it. Tight as hell. Subsoiler will get some stick this summer.

 

[Cowcorn]

Blimey!
I wish things here could be less grim! It’s getting worse, not better.
It’s like putting any Nitrogen fertiliser on makes it go backwards, not forwards.

All of my cereal fields were drilled by Oct 9th. All bar 4, by the end of September.
The problem is so much rain both prior to and particularly post-drilling that it has constantly had wet feet.

The Winter Beans were drilled about 20th Oct and apart from 3 cereal fields look the best crops on the farm.
However, the last 50 odd acres couldn’t get planted and I was hoping to plant them by the end of March.
No such luck.
So have decided that as patching in any cereals on the failed areas is a waste of time, to plant that last 50 acres with Spring Barley, just so as to provide us with some straw.

Feck knows if it will be any good.


I’m getting thoroughly pee'd off with the whole job. Nothing seems to go right.
It actually upsets me to get reaction scores.

I know it‘s not my fault, there are others who DD’d in this area with equally bad crops.
It is this unbelievable weather that is the cause.
But we cannot help blaming ourselves and wondering what we did wrong.
Especially when it is not your farm, you are managing it for somebody else. Who unfortunately has just taken over from is deceased father during the worst ever weather-time in farming I have ever known.

The only consultation is that our increased CS and SFI income will cushion the financial situation.
As long as we don’t get an inspection, because my God have they suffered too!

Dont annoy yourself everything is relative you done all you could .
The weather has kicked the sh!t out of everybody no matter what .
Im buying silage and after coming a long journey with a big load i stupidly climbed up on top to dislodge a grab that was sitting across a crossbar .
I slipped and fell 10 foot down on concrete .
Hell must have been closed for the weekend because im still here battered and bruised but nothing broken thank God .
Missed the drawbar by an inch ...
The sobering thought that i could have been departing in a ambulance and later a hearse puts everything in perspective ..

 

[teslacoils]

Anybody else finding that crops that have struggled to survive so far are just not moving, despite the lovely weather?

It’s like they have been ‘Bonsaid’!
They absolutely refuse to move and the drier soil surface makes them look even worse, not better.


I went to put some fertiliser on some grass fields today and had to abandon 2 because they are still like a bog.
Some of the grass hasn’t faired any better than the crop. It looks more like it would in a very wet and cold January.

Where my farmed deer have been grazing it, despite some poaching the grass is actually in better condition.

Yup. Soil is just knackered. Even a grass field I planted in 2012 has maybe half where the grass has given up. Took hay off it last year, and maybe 6ac of an 8ac field has just given up.

Im actually eyeing up a couple of sad fields to go rip up for the SFI in a few weeks

 

[J 1177]

Dont annoy yourself everything is relative you done all you could .
The weather has kicked the sh!t out of everybody no matter what .
Im buying silage and after coming a long journey with a big load i stupidly climbed up on top to dislodge a grab that was sitting across a crossbar .
I slipped and fell 10 foot down on concrete .
Hell must have been closed for the weekend because im still here battered and bruised but nothing broken thank God .
Missed the drawbar by an inch ...
The sobering thought that i could have been departing in a ambulance and later a hearse puts everything in perspective ..

Crikey look after yourself. Had a close call this week with sprayer, crapped myself but no one hurt.

 

[Bury the Trash]

Dont annoy yourself everything is relative you done all you could .
The weather has kicked the sh!t out of everybody no matter what .
Im buying silage and after coming a long journey with a big load i stupidly climbed up on top to dislodge a grab that was sitting across a crossbar .
I slipped and fell 10 foot down on concrete .
Hell must have been closed for the weekend because im still here battered and bruised but nothing broken thank God .
Missed the drawbar by an inch ...
The sobering thought that i could have been departing in a ambulance and later a hearse puts everything in perspective ..

take care there ,we aren't as agile as we used to be are we good an lucky job you're ok

 

[Bury the Trash]

work life family balance is far more important than a sh!t year out of 40 or more

No need to go abroad Skiing to spend time with family, as millions of families World wide who couldn't afford to do that would attest to.

 

[glasshouse]

No need to go abroad Skiing to spend time with family, as millions of families World wide who couldn't afford to do that would attest to.

Skiing is the best antidote to agrishyte.
I cant afford not to.
Not been since 2019 though.

 

[Bury the Trash]

Skiing is the best antidote to agrishyte.
I cant afford not to.
Not been since 2019 though.

ive never been.
daughter went the other day mind you, laid on /paid for by Her works as a ' team building ' weekend

 

[willy]

I do find when I run my Claydon harrow in my wheats it does perk them
Up and break the crust and also kill a fair percentage of black grass, but this year finding time when conditions are right is proving hard

 

[Sam Partridge]

Yes, absolutely the heavier clays are tight. They have done nothing but get tighter and tighter from the day they were drilled.
At no time has there been sufficient respite from the rain or any prolonged, cold enough frost to make any improvement to allow the crop any sort of chance to recover. The roots are sitting it very wet soil,without a chance of getting enough oxygen.

I have ordered a LD subsoiler for this Autumn, but of course it will need to be dry enough to use it.

A few things worry me:
Blackgrass, Blackgrass and Blackgrass!

We used to plough, then went into min-till. The Blackgrass exploded!
Went back to ploughing and got it back under control after about 5 years.

Went into DD, trying to use the least most disturbance so as not to wake up the Blackgrass.
We also use Hybrid Winter Barley as another string to our bow.
But found that Banbur was not strong enough to keep the Blackgrass under control.
Last Autumn, we went back to Crystal DFF + Avadex. But the Barley has been hammered so much by the wet weather that the Blackgrass has come back with avengance.

The now deceased owner of this farm was always tight on the money front, so I sold all the conventional equipment and didn’t replace my retired tractor driver. Therefore doing all the work myself.
So, if I wanted to go back into conventional, I’d need to buy a whole load of kit and get some extra labour again.

The prospect of both those doesn’t appeal!
However, unless we start getting some more normal weather again, we’ll have to.

It is so frustrating see others with plenty of labour and kit having much better looking crops than I do.

surely if the blackgrass is that bad a problem the plough has to make a comeback? even if rotationally? If labour is an issue, put more down to sfi or get contractors in and get on top of the blackgrass. Just because one part of the the equation (no-till or mintill cultivations) makes the job cheaper, the chem cost and competition must be costing more than a plough based system?

 

[Two Tone]

surely if the blackgrass is that bad a problem the plough has to make a comeback? even if rotationally? If labour is an issue, put more down to sfi or get contractors in and get on top of the blackgrass. Just because one part of the the equation (no-till or mintill cultivations) makes the job cheaper, the chem cost and competition must be costing more than a plough based system?

These are exactly the questions I’m asking and similar conclusions I’m coming up with.

BUT….. is the catalyst the excessive rain we have had the cause of such a sudden, catastrophic breakdown in Blackgrass control?
And if so, has this in effect scuppered RPA’s incentive of trying to make Agriculture more so-called more environmentally friendly by trying to persuade us all to Direct Drill?
Because when it comes down to it, Blackgrass control is and always will be the most important, overriding issue that must take precedence.

OR can we continue with DD, but only rotationally.
And if we are already using AB6 Enhanced Overwintered Stubbles, such as I am, will this in effect mean a full return to the plough and end DD completely for me?

Jury is well and truly out!