OSR Drilling 2019

Clive

Staff Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lichfield
Very impressive footage and figures, be interesting to see how the 724 performs when it's drilling winter beans 4+ inches deep

Think it will be fine - it's well on top of it at the moment - we always have the 6m CO ULD conversion (now with a front hopper) if not
 

HarryB97

Member
Mixed Farmer
Think it will be fine - it's well on top of it at the moment - we always have the 6m CO ULD conversion (now with a front hopper) if not
Front hopper sounds very smart is that so you can drill multiple seed types at once or to improve visibility and weight distribution?
 

Clive

Staff Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lichfield
Front hopper sounds very smart is that so you can drill multiple seed types at once or to improve visibility and weight distribution?

few reasons really !

one was to make them more (student) friendly when drilling covers etc - the double articulated seed / liqiud fert cart is a bit of a handful that needs a very skilled operator, With it dropped off out the way the tool bar is like a simple drag cultivator and visibly great

second reason was when using the seed / fert cart to add a extra product so we can do 2 seeds and fert like the new Avatar can

and finally it was a wet weather hedge - if we get another 2012 type season the well balanced, light weight unit on a well tyred tractor should go in most conditions when other drills would be stopped - this may also be useful for winter bean drilling - I did start a thread that I must update
 

Zippy768

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Dorset/Wilts
50 seeds would be standard enough with good seed in good conditions I would have thought. I’d be using the same rate.
A target of about 30 strong plants in the spring would be the plan.
I would say ours would be going in to very very good seed beds. I have no intention of going that low. Bought in seed I might of gone down to 80 but fss will be staying high end
 

CORK

Member
I would say ours would be going in to very very good seed beds. I have no intention of going that low. Bought in seed I might of gone down to 80 but fss will be staying high end

Interesting

Are you using hybrids or conventional for your bought in seed?

Conventional varieties used to be recommended at higher seed rates than hybrids but I’ve spoken to a couple of breeders recently who said the target spring population should be about 30 for both.

Obviously CSFB etc can cause by losses so this needs to be catered for.

Big strong well branched plants is what I like to see, hard to get these at very high populations.
 

Zippy768

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Dorset/Wilts
Interesting

Are you using hybrids or conventional for your bought in seed?

Conventional varieties used to be recommended at higher seed rates than hybrids but I’ve spoken to a couple of breeders recently who said the target spring population should be about 30 for both.

Obviously CSFB etc can cause by losses so this needs to be catered for.

Big strong well branched plants is what I like to see, hard to get these at very high populations.
Have a bag of campus to grow on and campus fss, so conventional. Drilled at 2kg/acre into ploughed and worked down land the equivalent weekend last year and did very well - just gonna do, as much as I can, the same again. Not broke, dont fix it.

I have had thin and very thin crops before and they ALWAYS surprise me in how they yield. But ime - although v limited compared to others on here - the better fuller crops going into winter and the stronger forward crops in the spring are the best yielders. Good seed rates are a good start
 

DrWazzock

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
There’s your problem. 2 kgs/ha?;). On a small acreage I don’t know why folks don’t just get it ploughed and follow with a combi drill.

My stubble turnip seed has a TGW of 1.85g. I know that because I am sad enough to have spent the last hour counting them out and weighing them on some antique chemistry scales.
I broadcast at 2 kg per ha which works out at 108 seeds per square metre.

5 days after broadcast/rolling I have about 20 seedlings per square metre at best which I am not very pleased with, but more might emerge.

But for stubble turnips I like them thinly sown as there is more chance of growing a big root. If each root gets to 250g then that's 50 t/ha of root.
Its very late for stubble turnips but the idea was to test the rig rather than grow a crop, but a crop of turnips would be a bonus.

Not quite sure what rate to drill the rape, but I might stick to what it says on the bag and go for 100 seeds per square metre (4.5 kg/ha) especially as I am not sure how well they will come up behind this cross kill roller and also I reckon the Turbojet Wizard controller is exaggerating a bit and in fact isn't applying what it says on the screen, probably due to some error on my part or the fact its ten years old. I told it to apply 3 kg per ha of turnips and it only seems to have applied 2 kg.

All good stuff.
 

Brisel

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Midlands
I would say ours would be going in to very very good seed beds. I have no intention of going that low. Bought in seed I might of gone down to 80 but fss will be staying high end

Your yield this year were certainly better than mine. I haven't had the weights back from United Oilseeds yet but my rough estimate of an average of 2.5 t/ha was certainly trounced by yours. Perhaps I should pay even more attention to your methods!

This is why I use such low seed rates:

830903


AHDB OSR Manual https://cereals.ahdb.org.uk/media/305093/g55-oilseed-rape-guide-jan-2014-update.pdf
 

Clive

Staff Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lichfield
I've messed about with various seed rates over the last few years and frankly found no significant difference from 30 right up to 250 seed /m2

30-40 plants is plenety to make a good crop but it also seems if you have 200 then its sorts itself out anyway

I use the higher rates now (200) simply as it's less risky and with FSS costs next to nothing more, it makes CSFB, slug and pigeons a lot less stressfull when you can afford to loose a few plants
 

DRC

Member
My stubble turnip seed has a TGW of 1.85g. I know that because I am sad enough to have spent the last hour counting them out and weighing them on some antique chemistry scales.
I broadcast at 2 kg per ha which works out at 108 seeds per square metre.

5 days after broadcast/rolling I have about 20 seedlings per square metre at best which I am not very pleased with, but more might emerge.

But for stubble turnips I like them thinly sown as there is more chance of growing a big root. If each root gets to 250g then that's 50 t/ha of root.
Its very late for stubble turnips but the idea was to test the rig rather than grow a crop, but a crop of turnips would be a bonus.

Not quite sure what rate to drill the rape, but I might stick to what it says on the bag and go for 100 seeds per square metre (4.5 kg/ha) especially as I am not sure how well they will come up behind this cross kill roller and also I reckon the Turbojet Wizard controller is exaggerating a bit and in fact isn't applying what it says on the screen, probably due to some error on my part or the fact its ten years old. I told it to apply 3 kg per ha of turnips and it only seems to have applied 2 kg.

All good stuff.
I drill stubble turnips at 2kgs an acre. 1.5kgs/ acre in July . We want some with smaller bulbs, as we find the big bulbs just go woody and hollow by early April.
 

DrWazzock

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
I drill stubble turnips at 2kgs an acre. 1.5kgs/ acre in July . We want some with smaller bulbs, as we find the big bulbs just go woody and hollow by early April.

True. So many factors to consider. But if we drilled at those rates with the unidrill they would be crowded in the row and not much root. I am still learning with broadcasting. You are probably right with those rates. Mine look a bit thin on the ground.

The very best crops of OSR we have had were admittedly with ploughing, then power harrowing, then cambridge rolling, then applying seed with alvan blanch brush box then harrow and roll. The seed landed in the cambridge rolled grooves so was all at consistent depth even though broadcast. It gave excellent even establishment and fantastic rooting. But it was a high risk strategy here. We lost it to wind blow a couple of times so went down the "rough and ready" route direct drillling and now broadcasting behind stubble cultivator. Not the same finesse. and would have made grandad turn in his grave but at least it is reasonably reliable and cheap, being one pass.

For some years we used an MF30 with small seed rolls. That really was a nightmare to set up.
 
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