Rape N conundrum

[Clive]

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.

1 - no

2 - yes but I manage risk accordingly as I do now, ie farm saved seed, zerotill and spend nothing until I know I have a crop - worst case I had a cheap cover ahead of winter beans or a spring crop and spent under £5/ha on it

OSR is about risk management not agronomy anymore

 

[Neddy flanders]

There’s a notable difference in the overlaps in autumn fert. Don’t think we are feeding the crop enough to get it strong enough to fight though the impact of CSFB. but obviously this is not aloud.

this was touched on by @York and I was sceptical earlier in the winter. Now think nutrition is the key. lighter, thinner soils have been decimated around here. heavier soils have faired better. those that have had massive aplications of sewage sludge or loads of fert (P,K,N) look far better. think i've used 6 different fert types this year.

remember, crops can look good now, but the larvae are still burrowing down the stem. the main damage will come from premature senescence in the final 2 weeks of June.

 

[average farmer]

I have no problem with writing a crop off in October/November, not dressed any seed for years now and never had much of a problem. Had to write a couple of fields off one year but the saving on the seed dressing more than covered it.
The problem I have is black grass and strong land so C maxand kerb is a must then in spring when you’re rape should start growing it just sits there that’s the problem!
I was feeling very smug nov/ dec getting a field of osr looking as good as it did without and pesticides when farmers around were spraying every other night. I’m not so smug now and I know it’s a year where crops look better off the road but maybe I should have been out spraying to ?

 

[Worsall]

@average farmer Ditto
Great looking crops through December, now shite.
I disagree with all the doom brigade that this was inevitable as a result of chucking this and that chemical about. My grandfather used to have to tow a paraffin soaked harrow across Hampshire Downs fields to establish turnips due to CSFB. We just need to spend more money, or the ADHB spend our money more wisely, and find alternative cultural methods. There is also a Varietal influence, although no breeder has yet to believe us.

 

[J 1177]

My osr has been hit by this in Durham. Not helped by the fact that everyone else's surrounding osr has grown away lovely, so the piegons have migrated to mine. It's just starting to recover now but it's really galling because it looked so well before Xmas. That's the finish of the bloody stuff, winter oats and beans as a break crop, I'm sick to death of the lottery with the blinking yellow weed.

 

[Flat 10]

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.

Lumiposa?!?! I understand that this can be imported from the continent. And some merchants will be this autumn.

 

[Woodlander]

Lumiposa?!?! I understand that this can be imported from the continent. And some merchants will be this autumn.

Yes, there was some available last autumn on imported seed. I did start a thread about it a few months ago. It needs resurrecting to see how people that used it got on!

 

[Green oak]

Cof-co asked if I wanted to buy some imported from Poland with lumiposa on it about a month ago. As there was very little available. I declined. £240 for 8kgs just gives me the shakes.

 

[limestone brash]

Rape isn’t all doom and gloom

 

[Flat 10]

Locally it is. Only one exception really. Might have to ask him how he did it. I would suspect FYM but he normally saves it for potatoes.

 

[Will7]

View attachment 786434 Rape isn’t all doom and gloom[/

I drove to Lamport, Northants, today for a BASE meeting and I did not see one good crop of rape from the minute I went past the Sleaford power station heading West. The best crops i saw were distinctly average, the other 80% were dreadful. I had not been in that direction for a long time and was shocked at what I saw.

Just for balance my osr looks decidedly average and its future lies in the balance, especially given what I saw today.

 

[limestone brash]

By the standards of the magazines my rape is always average- I regard over 1.5t as good.
I’ve always home saved seed for rape and drilled at at least double the rate recommended by the 2t growers so the neonic ban didn’t make any difference to me
There are a few bare patches in the really stony bits this time but the lack of any drowned bits more than make up for them

 

[Clive]

By the standards of the magazines my rape is always average- I regard over 1.5t as good.
I’ve always home saved seed for rape and drilled at at least double the rate recommended by the 2t growers so the neonic ban didn’t make any difference to me
There are a few bare patches in the really stony bits this time but the lack of any drowned bits more than make up for them

In the real world over 1.5 is good - especially if your input spend matches

The big yield growers are spending fortunes to achieve it and taking massive risks - not great business imo

 

[snarling bee]

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.

Surely that's a recipe for disaster with the Erucic acid problems found at crush.
Conventional volunteers can be a problem, surely HEAR volunteers are just asking for rejections.

 

[Green oak]

Read this earlier.

 

[Brisel]

Surely that's a recipe for disaster with the Erucic acid problems found at crush.
Conventional volunteers can be a problem, surely HEAR volunteers are just asking for rejections.

Agreed, when those fields come back around in the rotation in 6 years I’ll probably go with a Clearfield variety. This is the first time in 13 years I’ve grown HEAR and it’s only a small block.

 

[puntabrava]

I drove to Lamport, Northants, today for a BASE meeting and I did not see one good crop of rape from the minute I went past the Sleaford power station heading West. The best crops i saw were distinctly average, the other 80% were dreadful. I had not been in that direction for a long time and was shocked at what I saw.

Just for balance my osr looks decidedly average and its future lies in the balance, especially given what I saw today.

The crops that have been hit the hardest down here look to be on the chalk, there are some cracking crops on heavy ground and greensand.

 

[Brisel]

I drove to Lamport, Northants, today for a BASE meeting and I did not see one good crop of rape from the minute I went past the Sleaford power station heading West. The best crops i saw were distinctly average, the other 80% were dreadful. I had not been in that direction for a long time and was shocked at what I saw.

Just for balance my osr looks decidedly average and its future lies in the balance, especially given what I saw today.

I was briefly on the Lincolnshire Wolds last weekend, and drove a fair few of the roads around there. I saw half a dozen nice rape fields but 75% of the rest were very variable. I guess the worst had already been ripped up. The story was the same across the Midlands on the way there & back.

 

[Gong Farmer]

According to our North Regional Agronomist he has seen CSFB cases as far as Berwick but Lincolnshire is riddled with it.

 

[Billboy1]

Frost killed larvae now ? And curled rape over [emoji85]