Permanent clover understory

jack6480

Member
Location
Staffs
I think it will come back anyway I don’t want this much clover in the wheat next year. The wheat won’t compete like the oats
Ideally it would be good to drill rape into it with a claydon, that worked really well last year . But it’s getting on for rape.

what would you do with it?
 
Ideally it would be good to drill rape into it with a claydon, that worked really well last year . But it’s getting on for rape.

what would you do with it?

Graze it down hard, spray half the field and drill wheat into it.

That way you will have a comparison of sprayed vs not sprayed.
 

Fish

Member
Location
North yorkshire
Just had a look at the state of play on ours, a bit random.
25 acre field, about 50% has a good amount of plants which have survived the herbicides, of the other 50% about half has no surviving clover at all, the remaining area ranges from a few plants m/2 to full cover.
3E7DDCBD-B02E-4A70-9B51-B638406C984E.jpeg
2F61EC77-34BE-49FB-ADE7-FB375F7FFB98.jpeg
 

Wigeon

Member
Arable Farmer
Interesting stuff. If social media photographs are to be believed, the pioneers of this often stress the success of the clover stand rather than the cash crop, with some stubbles looking miserably thin (at least visually).

Is there much work being done on true strip till (I.e. exclusive strips of clover/wheat)? I only ask as this is something I'm attempting.
 

Humble Village Farmer

Member
BASE UK Member
Location
Essex
Drilled into our clover sward last week. I was encouraged by how well it ran considering some other fields with less cover were too wet.

Gave it 2 litres of glyphosate and that's all apart from some magic jungle juice

It's full of slugs though, even after a small dose of pellets which is worrying. Also there's loads of centipedes. Does anyone know what that's a sign of? I'm hoping they like slugs.
 

Badshot

Member
Location
Kent
I went to a trial this year that had a clover plot with wheat drilled into it.
There were no more than 5 or 10 ears per meter.
It wasn't a successful cash crop.
 
Has anyone any idea how much N a living mulch would 'leak' into the soil available for the cash crop. Looking to try this with heritage wheat but worried about too much N especially in the spring.
 

Humble Village Farmer

Member
BASE UK Member
Location
Essex
Has anyone any idea how much N a living mulch would 'leak' into the soil available for the cash crop. Looking to try this with heritage wheat but worried about too much N especially in the spring.
I don't think the n fixed is particularly available to companion plants. You have to shock the clover into giving some of it up. Most easily with a broad leafed herbicide. If you're organic, I think you might have to resort to interow harrowing or similar.

This is all hearsay though, as I haven't got that far with my own experiment yet.
 

Spade

Member
Livestock Farmer
Have DD clover into predominately ryegrass pastures with reasonable success but has anyone tried DD herbal mixes?
 

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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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