Optimum to sow rape

EddieB

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Staffs
F4C23D30-FEE7-4A5A-9C11-AE0707F719CC.jpeg

OSR getting a bit leggy.
 

8 Ace

Member
All gone wrong this year. Drilled our OSR into dry tilth on 12th/13th September. Dry summer, no significant rain forecast but we felt it was time. Another week would have been too late so we took the plunge. Ironically a little 3mm of rain during drilling made things sticky but the seed was in the ground. Seed drilled deepish to try and find a bit of moist but used same depth/drill setting as previous years.
6 weeks later, we may as well not have bothered. All the heavier land looks like being a failure as there is very little emergence. Some of the the siltier areas may survive with low plant populations if we can keep the pigeons at bay.
Lack of rainfall/soil moisture made worse by cultivations that allowed any residual moisture to escape is obviously an issue but that does not explain why perhaps 2 or 3 plants per sq metre got going and the other 47 didn`t. It does not seem possible to find either ungerminated seed or semigrown osr plants underground but the seed, although hard to find must be down there somewhere.
Locally, early drilled rape found some moisture and escaped much csfb damage and is thriving.
With the rain forecast for the East of England in the next 24 hours will the crop get a kickstart or is it doomed to failure as the autumnal clock ticks on?
Agronomist would bin the lot and has suggested the seed was drilled too deep for these dry conditions. Maybe he has a a point
 

Gedd

Member
Livestock Farmer
All gone wrong this year. Drilled our OSR into dry tilth on 12th/13th September. Dry summer, no significant rain forecast but we felt it was time. Another week would have been too late so we took the plunge. Ironically a little 3mm of rain during drilling made things sticky but the seed was in the ground. Seed drilled deepish to try and find a bit of moist but used same depth/drill setting as previous years.
6 weeks later, we may as well not have bothered. All the heavier land looks like being a failure as there is very little emergence. Some of the the siltier areas may survive with low plant populations if we can keep the pigeons at bay.
Lack of rainfall/soil moisture made worse by cultivations that allowed any residual moisture to escape is obviously an issue but that does not explain why perhaps 2 or 3 plants per sq metre got going and the other 47 didn`t. It does not seem possible to find either ungerminated seed or semigrown osr plants underground but the seed, although hard to find must be down there somewhere.
Locally, early drilled rape found some moisture and escaped much csfb damage and is thriving.
With the rain forecast for the East of England in the next 24 hours will the crop get a kickstart or is it doomed to failure as the autumnal clock ticks on?
Agronomist would bin the lot and has suggested the seed was drilled too deep for these dry conditions. Maybe he has a a point
Its difficult been spraying barley last week and theres rape plants growing this field had a failed rape crop on 3 years ago
 

4course

Member
Location
north yorks
All gone wrong this year. Drilled our OSR into dry tilth on 12th/13th September. Dry summer, no significant rain forecast but we felt it was time. Another week would have been too late so we took the plunge. Ironically a little 3mm of rain during drilling made things sticky but the seed was in the ground. Seed drilled deepish to try and find a bit of moist but used same depth/drill setting as previous years.
6 weeks later, we may as well not have bothered. All the heavier land looks like being a failure as there is very little emergence. Some of the the siltier areas may survive with low plant populations if we can keep the pigeons at bay.
Lack of rainfall/soil moisture made worse by cultivations that allowed any residual moisture to escape is obviously an issue but that does not explain why perhaps 2 or 3 plants per sq metre got going and the other 47 didn`t. It does not seem possible to find either ungerminated seed or semigrown osr plants underground but the seed, although hard to find must be down there somewhere.
Locally, early drilled rape found some moisture and escaped much csfb damage and is thriving.
With the rain forecast for the East of England in the next 24 hours will the crop get a kickstart or is it doomed to failure as the autumnal clock ticks on?
Agronomist would bin the lot and has suggested the seed was drilled too deep for these dry conditions. Maybe he has a a point
Was it home saved seed or bought in ? ,asking because from samples ive seen a lot of rape this year had very small seeds and had very low moisture content (as did other combinables) which have little if any vigour and even if germinated they dont have the reserves and die before getting out of the ground, especially if sown a tad deeper into dry seedbeds . Weve taken to reversing the cleaning process rather than removing the bottom 10% the thinking is only take the boldest for seed , taking your seed from the biggest available and dont use over dry seed , Plus its my contention that dressings despite their usefulness at times slow the sprouting time and thus use up seed reserves which doesnt help. we use the same principle with cereals
 

nick...

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
south norfolk
Rape around me looks very poor and can see pidgeons having a field day with most only being 2 inches tall.just had a ride round farm and my rape that was cut in early July has just started growing on the stubble left behind with most tiny plants only having a couple of tiny leaves infact you really have to look to find it.
nick...
 

8 Ace

Member
Was it home saved seed or bought in ? ,asking because from samples ive seen a lot of rape this year had very small seeds and had very low moisture content (as did other combinables) which have little if any vigour and even if germinated they dont have the reserves and die before getting out of the ground, especially if sown a tad deeper into dry seedbeds . Weve taken to reversing the cleaning process rather than removing the bottom 10% the thinking is only take the boldest for seed , taking your seed from the biggest available and dont use over dry seed , Plus its my contention that dressings despite their usefulness at times slow the sprouting time and thus use up seed reserves which doesnt help. we use the same principle with cereals
All bought in seed, Ambassador and Auckland. Both equally bad. Seed rate in kilos per ha was very low which indicates small seed of course. It could well be that size and vigour go together and these dry conditions have caused plenty of stress.
I wonder if the 15mm of rain earlier today will encourage anything else out of the ground in the next few days? Interesting comment just above about rape germinating 3 years after it was drilled
 

T Hectares

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Berkshire
Been a weird one here this autumn, good initial establishment after some rain around the end of first week of September, then everything was obliterated by csfb to point of thinking about redrilling, then a steady recovery and now a mild October has seen a decent recovery, no insecticides used
OSR, it’s as stressful as ever !!
C95BD16A-B29C-4AE3-A977-A8E74EABCCB4.jpeg
 

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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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