Pre - Harvest 2016 i had an exciting Fantasy....

Goldilocks

Member
BASE UK Member
Location
Oxfordshire
That no straw would ever leave the farm again and we would have maximum carbon return to the soil across the whole farm ( Historically have only sold Winter Barley straw before OSR , rest of crops all chopped )
Now turned into a nightmare :( .......Slug fest. Full rate metaldehyde + 6kg/Ha ferric phosphate gone on to OSR planted into chopped Winter Barley straw, probably be re-drilling this week.
Anyone else out there direct drilling or very min tilling OSR into chopped Winter Barley straw successfully or am I the only Village idiot ?
 

DrWazzock

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
That no straw would ever leave the farm again and we would have maximum carbon return to the soil across the whole farm ( Historically have only sold Winter Barley straw before OSR , rest of crops all chopped )
Now turned into a nightmare :( .......Slug fest. Full rate metaldehyde + 6kg/Ha ferric phosphate gone on to OSR planted into chopped Winter Barley straw, probably be re-drilling this week.
Anyone else out there direct drilling or very min tilling OSR into chopped Winter Barley straw successfully or am I the only Village idiot ?

Tried it once, never again. If it isn't the slugs, it's the straw toxicity, despite what the DD messiahs would have you believe. Beware of false prophets....
 

tw15

Member
Location
DORSET
OSR is now only sown in fields that have straw baled on a straw for muck arrangement . Stubble turnips and covercrops into any chopped straw.
Yes even had issues this year and have re sown some osr .
 

DRC

Member
OSR is now only sown in fields that have straw baled on a straw for muck arrangement . Stubble turnips and covercrops into any chopped straw.
Yes even had issues this year and have re sown some osr .

Why are stubble turnips ok, but not OSR ?
 

T Hectares

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Berkshire
This farm "got away with it" last year.
I have tried chopping some SB straw this year with the same aim as you but what an almighty mess !!
Luckily this field is going back into SB again so there's time for it to be sorted.

I would love to chop all straw bit can't see how it can be done at the moment with existing kit and a sizeable chunk of the farm in SB followed by OSR.

The Redekop chopper on the Axial flow seems to be doing a good job ( but with high hp requirements ) married to a strip till setup with row cleaners like a Slycat could work well ??

Or just bale and accept a hit on utopia !!
 
No need to chop wb straw as always plenty of time to shift it prior to rape going in
Sb straw can be chopped for speed and ploughed in with trash boards on quite easily
Cultivated and powerharrowed (non inversion but not minimal cultivation ) some sb strawe in prior to rape last year -actually think straw helped to prevent capping during massive storm soon after drilling and rape came ok
 

franklin

New Member
Ploughing today. Turning over the winter oat straw I ploughed in back in 2012. Stuff needs to be composted, or left on top until spring.
 

Goldilocks

Member
BASE UK Member
Location
Oxfordshire
With the benefit of hindsight I think we would have got away with it if we had maybe straw raked at an angle and then drilled at the opposite angle and used seed rate of nearer 100 s/m rather than the 70 s/m that we used. Would probably have killed a few more slugs , spread the straw sufficiently and put down enough seed to lose a few plants to slugs. Maybe we will get it right next year......
 

B'o'B

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Rutland
With the benefit of hindsight I think we would have got away with it if we had maybe straw raked at an angle and then drilled at the opposite angle and used seed rate of nearer 100 s/m rather than the 70 s/m that we used. Would probably have killed a few more slugs , spread the straw sufficiently and put down enough seed to lose a few plants to slugs. Maybe we will get it right next year......
How long did you leave the stubble? Leaving it as long as your drill can cope with keeps it off the soil surface also not chopping it too fine helps the soil breathe a little.
 

Goldilocks

Member
BASE UK Member
Location
Oxfordshire
How long did you leave the stubble? Leaving it as long as your drill can cope with keeps it off the soil surface also not chopping it too fine helps the soil breathe a little.
Had to go fairly low with the stubble to get the necked over barley ears. Chopped it as fine as we could get it with our new Lexion 760 with all singing and dancing chopper.
 

Wheatonrotty

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
MK43
Never bale before putting osr in as for the most part it follows SB and I don't want to risk delaying it going in. Put it in with the CO, this year with metcalfe points, a couple of doses of bait is normally enough to get it away.
 

Spud

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
YO62
We bale nearly everything, but particularly barley straw. Chop bean and OSR straw (if im daft enough to grow the stuff!) and occasionally wheat straw. Last year I chopped more wheat straw than normal, we had plenty, ans this particular field had grassweeds, was wet, and the forecast crap. Chopped it. Vetch and mustard cover was mostly disasterous. Spring drilling very much delayed due to the mat of chopped straw preventing the soil from drying.
I do think the chopped straw needs energy to break down, it'd mebe be ok if slurry was applied to the chopped straw for instance. Beans create the energy to break down their own residue.
 

Brisel

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Midlands
That no straw would ever leave the farm again and we would have maximum carbon return to the soil across the whole farm ( Historically have only sold Winter Barley straw before OSR , rest of crops all chopped )
Now turned into a nightmare :( .......Slug fest. Full rate metaldehyde + 6kg/Ha ferric phosphate gone on to OSR planted into chopped Winter Barley straw, probably be re-drilling this week.
Anyone else out there direct drilling or very min tilling OSR into chopped Winter Barley straw successfully or am I the only Village idiot ?

I tried out 4 strip till drills in a field of chopped and raked Volume winter barley straw last year. The Sumo DTS and Vaderstad Spirit Strip Till drills blocked up. The Claydon Hybrid and Mzuri Pro Till did OK. It needed 4 doses of sluggies in the wet August & only did 3.4 t/ha of V316 regardless of drilling method.

You're not the only one - I tried Claydon drilling into 200 acres of chopped spring barley straw with lots of raised blood pressures and lost drilling time. The crop now has 4 true leaves. You contributed to that thread, suggesting I modify my Wiberg as a rake.
 

spikeislander

Member
Location
bedfordshire
I have to drill into s barley straw every year and they are always good barley crops.
It's a challenge alright.
It's a subsoiler type drill and I have put some harrows in a diamond shape to precede the legs they help. Also I put a really good angle across the combine direction even if it means more short work its quicker.
Last year following 4t crops it was touch and go and I got dad to run over the combine ins and outs wth a powerharrow.
As on other thread I'm worried about straw in my seedbeds this year. Very reluctant to remove straw it has really helped our clay land being left and the mess clearance of bales can make in a wet year is apparent long after drilling etc.
 

Will7

Member
A couple of observations:
- This year we chopped the winter barley straw for a customer and it chopped well; but it was a low straw yield year for him and is destined for spring cropping. I would not encourage this approach if the following crop was osr.
- Just stand back and look at the situation in the field and empty your mind of all agricultural knowledge you have learnt over your career. Doesn't the 3" of densely chopped straw resemble a mulch a horticulturalist might use to suppress weeds?? Why then would a plant with a death wish for its 50 week growing life want to grow through it??
- I am currently looking at 75% of the farm with a mat of spring barley straw which will get raked in the next dry spell and left for winter. Some advice on here was to leave it for 3 weeks post harvest and it then becomes more manageable which I have done, and it does seem a lot better in my trials.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

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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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