Peed off

[Luke Cropwalker]

Well, I don't know about anyone else but personally I am sick of blackgrass. I would like to start a thread for everyone to post their ideas for blackgrass control. I am not talking about just ploughing, stale seedbeds etc but radical new ideas. Between us we may just come up with an idea that someone may try on farm and get a result. So it is thinking caps on, the more radical / off the wall / ridiculous the better, I will call on everyone not to be too negative but constructive criticism is welcome.

I will start the ball rolling with a couple; Could we establish crops through a cover that would suppress blackgrass, it might be possible to spray off the cover in the row either prior to or at drilling. Or could we drill cereals in wide but very dense / competitive rows and control blackgrass inbetween the rows with cultivations or mowing.

Luke

 

[Clive]

I don't have blackgrass but looking from the outside in -

Rotation - ww/osr/ww has got you all in this mess so it's not going to get you out of it

Rotation is they only way your going to deal with it, more crop diversity and spring crops in the rotation

Full rate roundup - never less or stupid split application that will bring resistance and then you will be properly screwed !

Also step away from the cultivator drill, either drill without disturbance in a direct or mintil system or get your ploughs back out, a stale seedbed is pointless if you then cultivate while drilling it surely

Pre-em are just to benefit the supply trades cash flow and commit you to a point of no return with a crop and on the spending treadmill, if you do the above you should surely be able to farm without them as many generations of farmers have before you ! I'm pretty sure blackgrass is not a new invention ?

Ignore any no independent advice re blackgrass - people are making a fortune out of advising farmers down the wrong route

 

[roscoe erf]

stubble burning i know its banned but it must have helped

 

[franklin]

Rogue winter wheat.

Cant agree about pre-em. We have got some incredible control with using something different this year.

No 2nd cereals. How about going further by saying no 2nd winter crop? I am getting better overall farm profit by growing wheat one in four or longer. Forget growing wheat every other year - also takes pressure off Atlantis where it does give control.

Forget the drill. Cultivate for your stale seedbeds. Leave it until November. Spread high rates of cleaned FSS on and ruffle in with a cultivator.

I would like to see slightly wider rows, and some kind of mechanical weeding device. See how a beet harvester steers itself down a row of beet? I am sure I could arrange a row of bicycle tyres to steer themselves down say 10 x 20cm rows. Just need to think of some kind of fancy "women's leg-hair epilator" mechanism to weed. WHile I appreciate this does nothing for anything growing within the row, something technological like this could be a solution. Like a robo-weeder.

 

[bobk]

Rogue winter wheat.

Cant agree about pre-em. We have got some incredible control with using something different this year.

No 2nd cereals. How about going further by saying no 2nd winter crop? I am getting better overall farm profit by growing wheat one in four or longer. Forget growing wheat every other year - also takes pressure off Atlantis where it does give control.

Forget the drill. Cultivate for your stale seedbeds. Leave it until November. Spread high rates of cleaned FSS on and ruffle in with a cultivator.

I would like to see slightly wider rows, and some kind of mechanical weeding device. See how a beet harvester steers itself down a row of beet? I am sure I could arrange a row of bicycle tyres to steer themselves down say 10 x 20cm rows. Just need to think of some kind of fancy "women's leg-hair epilator" mechanism to weed. WHile I appreciate this does nothing for anything growing within the row, something technological like this could be a solution. Like a robo-weeder.

You been on the pop today @static

 

[Luke Cropwalker]

Rogue winter wheat.

Cant agree about pre-em. We have got some incredible control with using something different this year.

No 2nd cereals. How about going further by saying no 2nd winter crop? I am getting better overall farm profit by growing wheat one in four or longer. Forget growing wheat every other year - also takes pressure off Atlantis where it does give control.

Forget the drill. Cultivate for your stale seedbeds. Leave it until November. Spread high rates of cleaned FSS on and ruffle in with a cultivator.

I would like to see slightly wider rows, and some kind of mechanical weeding device. See how a beet harvester steers itself down a row of beet? I am sure I could arrange a row of bicycle tyres to steer themselves down say 10 x 20cm rows. Just need to think of some kind of fancy "women's leg-hair epilator" mechanism to weed. WHile I appreciate this does nothing for anything growing within the row, something technological like this could be a solution. Like a robo-weeder.

Would competition from the crop be sufficient within the row ? Blackgrass is not very competitive, excellent post Static.

 

[franklin]

Nothing else to do - raining again.

Winter farming discussions are all about BG, and mostly seems to be centred on "what's new to beat BG and allow us to keep on doing what we are doing?". If Atlantis is doing nothing, then might as well grow a 6-row barley as the rest of the chem options are the same; barley will compete better; barley will yield better for a given level of BG; barley will be cut a lot earlier than these new late wheats and allow a big chunk of time to deal with the BG rather than wheat cut -> baler out of field -> rape in straight behind, no where are my cans of spray? When I grew oats people asked what I was going to do about the BG. I said sod all. If you are getting low chemical control in wheat and Atlantis does next to nothing, then you will get the same level of control in barley. So grow that for winter cereal and marvel at all that lovely time in August.

 

[spikeislander]

I can't see burning coming back sadly. But if we were allowed 15% a year in "safe" fields., it might help. And maybe an allocation of Ipu per farm to hit a block every 5 years although it was losing its battle against it.
Personally we are thinking about concentrating on single fields when they hit threshold levels and have a series of spring crops in sequence for maybe 3 - 4 years clean it up well and move to next problem area. Instead of a half Hearted attempt on the whole farm.

 

[marco]

I can't see burning coming back sadly. But if we were allowed 15% a year in "safe" fields., it might help. And maybe an allocation of Ipu per farm to hit a block every 5 years although it was losing its battle against it.
Personally we are thinking about concentrating on single fields when they hit threshold levels and have a series of spring crops in sequence for maybe 3 - 4 years clean it up well and move to next problem area. Instead of a half Hearted attempt on the whole farm.

Why wouldn't you spring crop halve the farm every year. And as said winter barley then you can have 3 stale seed beds created with a straw rake which makes it cheap and only disturbed the top inch.

 

[DrWazzock]

Wider rotations key along with spring cropping and maybe some radical rotations like OSR two years in a row, hammer it with Kerb. Don't disturb the soil, full rate round up and don't disturb those nasty layers of residual chemical so DD is king as far as I'm concerned. The layer of residual kerb is your friend against Blackgrass and won't damage the next crop cereal crop as badly as the label suggests, IMO.

Avoid contractors coming in with combines spreading it, and on tillage tackle wheels etc. if you have not got it save own seed.

If ploughing was effective we would not have Blackgrass today.

 

[spikeislander]

I don't think one year spring crop controls enough. plenty of blackgrass following spring oats and spring barley this year. (not ours may I add) .

 

[Oilseed]

We should not drill anything until November to allow the Bg to grow and be sprayed off. This means we need a radically different drill. Maybe one to tow behind the quad bike or a couple of traction engines to pull the drill across the field on a wire rope or maybe swap the JD for a hovercraft!

 

[Yale]

Sheep,they eat most things.

 

[Bluetooth]

as an outsider to it how do people get it in the first place? neighbours got it in one small field a couple of years ago right in the middle of the farm, the only way it can logically get there is from bought in seed? which is surely a bit naughty to be selling seed with nasty's such as that in?

 

[rob1]

We should not drill anything until November to allow the Bg to grow and be sprayed off. This means we need a radically different drill. Maybe one to tow behind the quad bike or a couple of traction engines to pull the drill across the field on a wire rope or maybe swap the JD for a hovercraft!

Might be ok on boys ground cant see it working on proper land. Grass breaks followed by rape with kerb then pre em, decent follow up in the autumn, then atlantis in the spring then rogue out any left then spring crop

 

[gone up the hill]

Plough/rotation and proper break crops are the only way to control BG.

Best way is proper break crops/rotation which would be something like a catch crop of roots for sheep ( building fertility ) followed by spring oats then winter wheat then WOSR then back to a root crop...

Non stop cropping without a proper break crop/s, building fertility is half the problem, alongside the mental race to be drilled up with wheat by mid Sept!!!

If you want wisdom/the answers then look back 40 years, far too much reliance on chemicals to grow crops these days and its just not sustainable long term for many reasons...

 

[Andy26]

We should not drill anything until November to allow the Bg to grow and be sprayed off. This means we need a radically different drill. Maybe one to tow behind the quad bike or a couple of traction engines to pull the drill across the field on a wire rope or maybe swap the JD for a hovercraft!

^This

But, in the last 15 years perhaps half of them, the autumns have been too wet to establish WW in November.

Would need some serious flotation tyres and perhaps a high powered air compressor that fired the seed into the wet soil.

 

[snarling bee]

The only way I have ever successfully controlled a resistant BG population is either an uncultivated (or stubble rake etc) fallow or spraying off patches in a crop in June. Ploughing and/or spring cropping is like pissing in the wind.
Autocast OSR and Kerb also is pretty good.

 

[Tractor Boy]

Can't believe some people still think Kerb in OSR is the answer, especially the post about two Years in a row. Winter OSR is the WORST crop for encouraging black grass due to ridiculously early sowing. Kerb doesn't give anywhere near 100% control, take a look under the senescing rape canopy!! If the weather plays ball Kerb may give 90% but if not maybe barely 50%. Also how long before Kerb is either banned for turning up in water, or black grass starts to show resistance to it!!

 

[Clive]

Honestly reading this you really would think blackgrass was a new invention

How did wheat ever grow without the 'help' that chemical manufacturers have given you all

Stop reading articles sponsored by multinationals in yellow magazines would be the first step for many towards solving this issue