Planning a crop rotation

[Hagri]

Hi.

As my first post I thought I would ask for advice on how best to plan crop rotations. I come from a tillage farm where there is no real plan in place and where continuous cereals have been dominating. For college I studied soil microbiology under different cropping systems as my final year project. This really opened my eyes to soil biology and the importance of managing our soils sustainably and the need for growing crops that will feed them. It has also inspired my to look into conservation agriculture techniques and moving towards strip till in future.

Back to the point of the post, I'd like to understand better which types of crops would benefit/compliment each other in a rotation and reasons for including them. Our previous 6 year cropping history for all of our fields can be seen in the picture. Comments are welcome as well as any advice for future crops.

 

[Oat]

In your fields were you have continuous cereals, you have probably overcome the take-all decline.

At the moment your only break crop appears to be carrots, are you open to considering other crops? Do you have the equipment, market, etc... Maybe consider-
Beans- can be quite cheap to grow and will improve the soil structure and N levels.
WOSR- can be quite high margin

Since your rotation is very limited, and would be virgin land for many other crops, maybe there is a opportunity growing seed crops?

 

[franklin]

Carrots, PP, spring crops......

In light of no other info:

Light land farm then.

1)Leave the grass be.
2)Let the rest for potatos.
3)Profit.

 

[Hagri]

In your fields were you have continuous cereals, you have probably overcome the take-all decline.

At the moment your only break crop appears to be carrots, are you open to considering other crops? Do you have the equipment, market, etc... Maybe consider-
Beans- can be quite cheap to grow and will improve the soil structure and N levels.
WOSR- can be quite high margin

Since your rotation is very limited, and would be virgin land for many other crops, maybe there is a opportunity growing seed crops?

Thanks for the reply Oat. I am very open to introducing crops such as beans, peas, OSR etc. Just have to convince the old lad to vary. Yields on our farm would probably be below average in some so change is much needed. The carrot ground is land rented out for that purpose so no equipment needed. We have our own one pass drill, 21m trailed sprayer and a 1072 JD combine. Looking into a disc cultivator and mini drill for cover crops atm too as we are required to grow a certain amount under the GLAS scheme here in Ireland and personally I'd like to have more ground under it.

Would there be any recommendations on when to include beans or OSR? Beans after carrot ground for example as it fixes N?

Do you mean the likes of linseed or flax as a seed crop? What are the perks to that?

 

[DanniAgro]

What are 1. the soil/s
and 2. the climate/rainfall etc?
It'd be best to consider these factors before any firm decisions are made.

 

[Hagri]

What are 1. the soil/s
and 2. the climate/rainfall etc?
It'd be best to consider these factors before any firm decisions are made.

1. Loam soil with high pH. Light soil. Full data sheet about its type can be seen in the following link. http://gis.teagasc.ie/soils/rep_profile_sheet.php?series_code=1000ET

2. Climate temperature and rainfall for my home town can be seen in picture below: Sourced from Yr.

Any other requests?

 

[DanniAgro]

Thanks - that's a good start.

Would you care to swop your soil for mine? I'd love to have the sand in yours to make mine break down easily.

 

[Farmer-George]

What part of the country are you in? I would consider my local markets before changing my rotation and what your storage system is best set up for.

For your cereals are you mainly in a feed area or are there quality homes? Milling oats? Human consumption for beans and peas?

Might be wrong in guessing you have livestock? If so you're likely to be doing muck for straw which could encourage lodging in some crops.

Personally I'd assume you are able to tap into some kind of premium market. Group 4 softs seem to be attracting a small premium even when grown as feed.

Might be worth breaking the rotation up a little bit as well and entering rape into the rotation following winter barley as an early entry. Peas are a good N fixer, but consider your harvesting equipment beforehand. If you've got a 20ft cut it will be easier to combine them when they're on the floor.

 

[ploughman1963]

Forgive my being blunt - (or showing my ignorance perhaps) - but is it just me? There seems to be very little pattern or planning in that cropping plan? Without knowing the details of your field sizes, soil types, etc it is very difficult to offer advice. I endeavour to create a rotation of crops which are compatible in timings and able to offer breaks to the benefit of following crops.

 

[CORK]

Forgive my being blunt - (or showing my ignorance perhaps) - but is it just me? There seems to be very little pattern or planning in that cropping plan? Without knowing the details of your field sizes, soil types, etc it is very difficult to offer advice. I endeavour to create a rotation of crops which are compatible in timings and able to offer breaks to the benefit of following crops.

To be fair, he did point out at the beginning that there is no current plan to the cropping.
It appears to be a farm in Southern Ireland (that’s where I am too).
We were traditionally continuous spring barley growers but since we introduced planned rotations, our yields and margins have greatly improved.

Well done to the OP for trying to improve things, getting the older generation to come around isn’t always easy though!

 

[ploughman1963]

Sorry , I wholeheartedly applaud the OP for coming on and looking for advice
It struck me that there seemed to be parts of the year where nothing was grown and also that there seemed to be no ‘rotation ‘ - a planned pattern of crop planting that moved around the farm. I noted that at one point carrots were followed by winter barley and at another by spring barley?

 

[Hagri]

Sorry , I wholeheartedly applaud the OP for coming on and looking for advice
It struck me that there seemed to be parts of the year where nothing was grown and also that there seemed to be no ‘rotation ‘ - a planned pattern of crop planting that moved around the farm. I noted that at one point carrots were followed by winter barley and at another by spring barley?

That's the point ploughman. I'm well aware there is no real plan for rotation on the farm. No in depth thought has really ever gone into it, always been just grow whats necessary. I've started this thread to look for advice/suggestions on how to develop a more sustainable and productive cropping regime. You asked in your previous post about soil type (I provided a link to this in an earlier post above, its a loam) and field sizes. Below is the rotation with the field sizes included. I know the acres/ha don't match exactly (rough totting) so ignore that.

What crop do you think would best follow carrots for example?

 

[Hagri]

What part of the country are you in? I would consider my local markets before changing my rotation and what your storage system is best set up for.

For your cereals are you mainly in a feed area or are there quality homes? Milling oats? Human consumption for beans and peas?

Might be wrong in guessing you have livestock? If so you're likely to be doing muck for straw which could encourage lodging in some crops.

Personally I'd assume you are able to tap into some kind of premium market. Group 4 softs seem to be attracting a small premium even when grown as feed.

Might be worth breaking the rotation up a little bit as well and entering rape into the rotation following winter barley as an early entry. Peas are a good N fixer, but consider your harvesting equipment beforehand. If you've got a 20ft cut it will be easier to combine them when they're on the floor.

I'm in the midlands of Ireland. Good shed space but not the tidiest or best organised, no real sections or dividers as such.

We grow a lot of spring barley for malting. Oats kept on farm for feeding horses. Peas and beans.. I guess that would be the idea, don't have a lot of experience with them myself. Our wheat goes for animal feed mainly.

Livestock: We do have ~90 suckler cows and ~200 ewes, tbh we could be better at getting our FYM out to stubbles. Sometimes its on grass.

Keen on the idea of OSR, combine would need to be patched up as the seed is very fine or else get someone else to harvest.. what are the major benefits of including OSR? I heard peas can be tricky? Our combine only has 12ft header.

 

[Oat]

Thanks for the reply Oat. I am very open to introducing crops such as beans, peas, OSR etc. Just have to convince the old lad to vary. Yields on our farm would probably be below average in some so change is much needed. The carrot ground is land rented out for that purpose so no equipment needed. We have our own one pass drill, 21m trailed sprayer and a 1072 JD combine. Looking into a disc cultivator and mini drill for cover crops atm too as we are required to grow a certain amount under the GLAS scheme here in Ireland and personally I'd like to have more ground under it.

Would there be any recommendations on when to include beans or OSR? Beans after carrot ground for example as it fixes N?

Do you mean the likes of linseed or flax as a seed crop? What are the perks to that?

Beans and WOSR are generally good entries into cereals. WOSR can be planted easily after cereals.
WOSR can be planted min-till fairly cheaply, so you don't necessarily need to plough. Beans can be planted by drilling or spinning onto the surface and then ploughing in, or can be my min-till or drilling into ploughing.
Peas can be OK, but if they fall over, they are a b*tch to harvest.

Personally, I would not plant beans or WOSR before or after carrots, as they are all broad-leaved crops, there is bound to be some insects or diseases which may crossover

There are lots of variables and without knowing further details of your land, situation and market, I would suggest 2 years of cereals followed by a break crop (WOSR, beans, carrots etc...), and then 1-2x years of cereals followed by a different break crop.

 

[franklin]

I dont know what the rules are in Ireland, but have you irrigation?

 

[Hagri]

I dont know what the rules are in Ireland, but have you irrigation?

We don't but one year the carrot men had a water canon set up in one of the fields getting water from a nearby stream.. why ask about irrigation? For potatoes?

 

[franklin]

Yup. I expect you get more rainfall than us over here, but in terms of cropping things like OSR and beans are really quite poo for money compared with roots etc. If you have a nice light loam to grow carrots on, then I expect with water you open up the prospect of many more interesting cropping options.

 

[Hampton]

Beans and WOSR are generally good entries into cereals. WOSR can be planted easily after cereals.
WOSR can be planted min-till fairly cheaply, so you don't necessarily need to plough. Beans can be planted by drilling or spinning onto the surface and then ploughing in, or can be my min-till or drilling into ploughing.
Peas can be OK, but if they fall over, they are a b*tch to harvest.

Personally, I would not plant beans or WOSR before or after carrots, as they are all broad-leaved crops, there is bound to be some insects or diseases which may crossover

There are lots of variables and without knowing further details of your land, situation and market, I would suggest 2 years of cereals followed by a break crop (WOSR, beans, carrots etc...), and then 1-2x years of cereals followed by a different break crop.

Why not use grass as a break crop?
Or stubble turnips?
I'm not having a go, but it's easy to say grow osr or beans.
I would suggest rotating your current cropping. Maybe something like winter wheat - grass 2-3years - Spring barley - winter oats - winter wheat.
Carrots could slot in instead of grass on certain fields.
To the OP
Do you not have problems with barley volunteers in the wheat?

 

[Hagri]

Why not use grass as a break crop?
Or stubble turnips?
I'm not having a go, but it's easy to say grow osr or beans.
I would suggest rotating your current cropping. Maybe something like winter wheat - grass 2-3years - Spring barley - winter oats - winter wheat.
Carrots could slot in instead of grass on certain fields.
To the OP
Do you not have problems with barley volunteers in the wheat?

Stubble turnips could be used as a cover crop I'd imagine, then into a spring crop afterwards? There was talks of turning some of the grass lands back into crops alright so grass in the rotation would be possible.

Never really have any major problems with volunteer barley. We do get a lot of wild oats however. And cleavers are very bad in a couple of fields. With the poorer weather conditions over the last 2 harvests they've proven to be a challenge when harvesting.

 

[Farmer-George]

I'm in the midlands of Ireland. Good shed space but not the tidiest or best organised, no real sections or dividers as such.

We grow a lot of spring barley for malting. Oats kept on farm for feeding horses. Peas and beans.. I guess that would be the idea, don't have a lot of experience with them myself. Our wheat goes for animal feed mainly.

Livestock: We do have ~90 suckler cows and ~200 ewes, tbh we could be better at getting our FYM out to stubbles. Sometimes its on grass.

Keen on the idea of OSR, combine would need to be patched up as the seed is very fine or else get someone else to harvest.. what are the major benefits of including OSR? I heard peas can be tricky? Our combine only has 12ft header.

In that case the combinable Crops in your rotation works for your storage. We mainly look to group 4s as it suits our storage, have around half as softs and the remainder has hards as it suits our local markets and we usually are able to tap into a modest premium.