Rape N conundrum
- Thread starter Flintstone
- Start date
- Location
- Essex/Herts Border
I think up until the Neonic ban the seed dressings were keeping a lid on flea beetle numbers to a point where plants could usually grow away from small levels of damage and many of us didn't really look to hard for them or shotholing damage and were more focused on slugs at establishment. Remove the neonic dressings and I think the population has gone into overdrive with not enough natural predators to control them and pyrethroid sprays having little effect on them. Add to that a a few mild winters recently compared to more normal cold winters we used to have with days of frosts on end not reducing there numbers. And its almost the perfect conditions for them to thrive.
That said there must be a way of controlling these little buggers, we are being outwitted by a little black beetle! We just need to think outside the box more, release thousands of captive-bred parasitic wasps (or whatever eats flea beetles) pre-drilling perhaps??
That said there must be a way of controlling these little buggers, we are being outwitted by a little black beetle! We just need to think outside the box more, release thousands of captive-bred parasitic wasps (or whatever eats flea beetles) pre-drilling perhaps??
My point is that some dont seem to see is just look how completely dependant our soils have become upon chemistry to produce a crop
Any farmer that can’t see that’s just not normal needs to think carefully about it
Over the last few decades we have turned our soils into drug dependant junkies though our use of artificial fertiliser and crop protection chemicals and what we are seeing with OSR is just the beginning of the end unless we do something dramatic to chage things
Any farmer that can’t see that’s just not normal needs to think carefully about it
Over the last few decades we have turned our soils into drug dependant junkies though our use of artificial fertiliser and crop protection chemicals and what we are seeing with OSR is just the beginning of the end unless we do something dramatic to chage things
Ask yourself WHY it’s an issue
What have we done that has created such natural imbalance that this crop apparently cant be grown without insecticides ?
IMO. We need to start looking at the bigger picture here before it’s too late............... for humanity not just our farms !
John Slejpner
Member
- Location
- Brick clay near Bedford
If my agronomist gets his way, we are about to find out what happens when OSR goes to zero !
Winter beans is his option of choice currently.
Higher seed rates, waiting for damp soil, banded N / DAP have all been used recently, if not before, to successfully get OSR off to a strong 2-4 true leaf stage.
In other words to replace neonics.
If a neonic seed dressing could have defended a decent sized plant from CSFB attack all october and into november then they are a lot more potent than we were ever led to believe.
You can feed it harder within the blanket 30 kg/ha N if you band the N close to the seed. There's also a lot to be said for sowing it earlier and at a high seed rate, though expensive hybrid seed makes this unviable. I am dropping HEAR hybrids next year & will just buy a bag of new conventional seed each year for breeding up into next year's farm saved & accept a few volunteers coming up in it. It's still a nice crop when you get it right but the current guidelines just aren't working.
Bit late really 7million on the planet wouldn’t have much impact but 7billion is a different proposition. So we can’t all be organic market gardeners
I don’t think it’s too late yet ......... we might be cutting things fine however !
The answer is clearly not organic but equally it’s clearly not conventional as we know it either
The natural world is not a perfect balance more like a cycle of peaks and troughs.
If over a short period in natural time, not human time, we decide to grow a large acreage of OSR there will be a cyclical increases in its pests and then their predators.
Next year will/could be very different, with all food the predators could be expanding rapidly.
Then again perhaps not and it will be worse, but eventually their numbers will crash.
House sparrows where a huge problem here in the eighties then almost disappeared for 20yrs but numbers seem to be increasing again.
We had 10+ yrs of slug mayhem but last couple of years had very little with no real change.
At the moment the wood pigeon seems to be enemy number one. Will they too suddenly crash like the sparrow I hope they are at the top of their cycle.
Human life is also cyclical Egyptian, Greek, Roman civilisations all peaked and crashed. Life does not always get better even for us.
I think we would have crashed by now without the science and inovation which seems out of fashion today.
If over a short period in natural time, not human time, we decide to grow a large acreage of OSR there will be a cyclical increases in its pests and then their predators.
Next year will/could be very different, with all food the predators could be expanding rapidly.
Then again perhaps not and it will be worse, but eventually their numbers will crash.
House sparrows where a huge problem here in the eighties then almost disappeared for 20yrs but numbers seem to be increasing again.
We had 10+ yrs of slug mayhem but last couple of years had very little with no real change.
At the moment the wood pigeon seems to be enemy number one. Will they too suddenly crash like the sparrow I hope they are at the top of their cycle.
Human life is also cyclical Egyptian, Greek, Roman civilisations all peaked and crashed. Life does not always get better even for us.
I think we would have crashed by now without the science and inovation which seems out of fashion today.
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Yeah sums it up really
Modern chemical farming is wrong, the system was not designed to work like that, have a look at what nature does, what we are doing is completely different and we are failing and are going to fail a lot more but continue to wail when nature fights back, wail when each toxic poison is withdrawn. The problems we have are of our own making and the answer doesn't come in a can
Just an observation this year the better looking rape crops that don't seem to be as badly hit by flea beetle seem to be on hilly fields . Dropped rape here for this year but the stubble turnips that didn't get hit hard by them were where we put slurry on just as they were coming through . Makes you think if the field don't smell of a brassica or a crop they are attracted to they don't hang around on it .
I am concerned that as there is so many osr crops infested with larvae it will surely mean that it will be worse this next season .
I am concerned that as there is so many osr crops infested with larvae it will surely mean that it will be worse this next season .
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Maybe it is the smell, I'd have thought the slurry has provided the plant with some organic nutrition that has increased it's health, so called pests only feed on unhealthy plants. Nature's bin men
There's no correlation between slope and CSFB infestation here. It's entirely down to sowing date. I only have 500 acres of osr, sown in the same week after the bank holiday. The stuff sown at the beginning of the week looks magnificent but as the week went on the crops got hit harder.
SilliamWhale
Member
Im not sure mine have been hit by csfb. They just look so incredibly variable. Some plants ankle height others waist. V v odd.
I suppose the ankle heighters still have time to catch up. Most odd though
I suppose the ankle heighters still have time to catch up. Most odd though
Dissect some. You will soon know if there’s larvae there.
SilliamWhale
Member
Couldnt find any. Also wondering if living in the far west with rape fields few and far between should make a difference to pressure
- Location
- Leicestershire
The areas being badly hit by CSFB, are spreading further north and west as each year post Neonic seed dressings goes by. Some people have seen little damage this year but this pest doesn't follow any rules.
2 simple questions. Yes or no answer only please.
1. A new insecticidal seed dressing becomes available this autumn. It will provide 6-8 weeks protection against CSFB - enough to get the crop established and beyond the 4 true leaf stage. Would you use it?? If no answer Q2.
2. You lose 1/2 of your OSR area next year to CSFB do you now use it the following year?
Question open to all.
My answer is yes to question 1. I really don't like using insecticides, but this is the difference between a viable crop and no crop. We're not talking about a 5% potential yield love
Oh sorry - I said yes/no answer only.