Rolling spring cereals again

[ajd132]

We rolled everything after drilling and all looks fairly good apart from one block which was abit wet.
Due abit of rain tomorrow so I was thinking it may be worth rolling everything again to encourage tillering and breaking up a few clouds where it was direct drilled wet. This is for spring wheat, oats and barley. Will it be beneficial?

 

[whiddy]

Hopefully as did some yesterday!!

 

[Brisel]

Any residual herbicide layer you don't want disturbed?

I don't see a problem, as long as the soil is nice & dry so you're not compacting the wet stuff underneath. Your CTF is ideal if there's only 1 set of wheelings between tramlines.

 

[ajd132]

Any residual herbicide layer you don't want disturbed?

I don't see a problem, as long as the soil is nice & dry so you're not compacting the wet stuff underneath. Your CTF is ideal if there's only 1 set of wheelings between tramlines.

Never use pre em on spring crops. We are actually moling the wet fields through the crop at the moment. Pretty dry but perfect moling conditions at depth. See what rain we get, could be a busy weekend!

 

[ajd132]

Any residual herbicide layer you don't want disturbed?

I don't see a problem, as long as the soil is nice & dry so you're not compacting the wet stuff underneath. Your CTF is ideal if there's only 1 set of wheelings between tramlines.

Also, will spring wheat respond? Never rolled it like this before.

 

[Brisel]

I don't have much experience of spring wheat, but rolling is supposed to create a stress response in the plant that promotes tiller production, so it should work unless the rolling does lots of damage.

 

[mixed breed]

Asked the same last year, so flat rolled some mulika 22/4/2019 following @davidroberts30 's recommendation. It looked awful for a few days after but it tillered really well afterwards. Out of interest, I left some unrolled, here's the difference photos taken 5/5/19

Unrolled

Rolled

 

[Chae1]

Never use pre em on spring crops. We are actually moling the wet fields through the crop at the moment. Pretty dry but perfect moling conditions at depth. See what rain we get, could be a busy weekend!

Apologies as it always seems like I'm questioning you, but you always give interesting replies.

What's the idea of going through with a low disturbance drill, then dragging a mole through the soil? Surely a mole causes a lot of soil movement? I thought once you zero tilled the worms were so abundant all of there borrows and pathways allowed moisture to percolate away through the soil.

The amount times I've seen pictures of waterlogged fields and the neighbouring no tilled field has nothing lying on top.

 

[Brisel]

Soil biology hates being waterlogged. A good structure near the surface still needs somewhere for the water to go down to. Heavy clay still needs to have drainage under it or the whole "system" can fall apart.

 

[Clive]

We rolled everything after drilling and all looks fairly good apart from one block which was abit wet.
Due abit of rain tomorrow so I was thinking it may be worth rolling everything again to encourage tillering and breaking up a few clouds where it was direct drilled wet. This is for spring wheat, oats and barley. Will it be beneficial?

thinking similar and if we were not drilling today we would be rolling again

 

[ajd132]

Apologies as it always seems like I'm questioning you, but you always give interesting replies.

What's the idea of going through with a low disturbance drill, then dragging a mole through the soil? Surely a mole causes a lot of soil movement? I thought once you zero tilled the worms were so abundant all of there borrows and pathways allowed moisture to percolate away through the soil.

The amount times I've seen pictures of waterlogged fields and the neighbouring no tilled field has nothing lying on top.

the mole is low disturbance, you can hardly see where its been. We are on heavy clay soils so cannot rely on just worms unfortunately. We don't get water logged but good drainage on this soil is paramount whatever the farming system.

 

[Daniel]

I confessed to some grievous sins of water managment on twitter yesterday. A heavy ridge of old river bed runs through this field of fen soil, and after potatoes last autumn it was far too wet to do anything with.

As soon as possible this spring we pulled a superflow through it and combi drilled it with Chilham. It was then rolled. The fen soil has germinated nicely, but the ridge just baked solid, note the wheat emerged in the good soil top left of the picture:

Thought without a helping hand we'd struggle to get a crop:

The land had all straw removed for years by the previous tenant, so from this autumn it's chopped straw and covercrops, though 5 year FBTs do tend to limit the enthusiasm for this sort of investment.

Might be worth a 2nd roll after emergence?

Awkward fields to manage with such a variation in soil types!

 

[Shutesy]

Got quite a bit of spring barley I would like to roll again having rolled it just after it was drilled as per usual. Now its up how big does it want to be before I can go on with the rolls? None has had a pre-em so no worries in that respect.

 

[davidroberts30]

Got quite a bit of spring barley I would like to roll again having rolled it just after it was drilled as per usual. Now its up how big does it want to be before I can go on with the rolls? None has had a pre-em so no worries in that respect.

2 to 3 leaf

 

[DrWazzock]

How hard is it already underneath?
Do I really want more tillers if it’s going to stay this dry?
I’d roll to crush clods around seeds or to bury stones and help the combine or maybe help manganese problems but otherwise I’m sceptical.
Does it let disease in?
Dad always rolled in the spring and it always “ looked” good. He reckoned get it rolled before its length of a pencil at the very latest. But in those days we had an mf 30 which did no consolidation at all. The unidrill crushes it in.
At this stage if it’s cloddy enough to bother the knife or you really want more tillers then roll it, or if there is loads of unchitted seed lying in there.

 

[robin banks]

My spring wheat was sowed this day 2 weeks ago with one pass. About 10mm rain next day. Then very dry so I rolled it 6 days later I checked and seed had 2 roots but no stem at that stage. Now it's all emerged and about an inch high. Am getting some rain now and will be wet this weekend but to get dry and hot next week. So should I roll next week. Have only got flat roller

 

[Flat 10]

My spring wheat was sowed this day 2 weeks ago with one pass. About 10mm rain next day. Then very dry so I rolled it 6 days later I checked and seed had 2 roots but no stem at that stage. Now it's all emerged and about an inch high. Am getting some rain now and will be wet this weekend but to get dry and hot next week. So should I roll next week. Have only got flat roller

I wouldn’t fancy it myself.

 

[tw15]

I recon a good rolling when it is just starting tillering helps

 

[yellow belly]

We are rolling after mole draining spring barley and spring beans
we may get rain tonight
if the forecast was wetter I would not be rolling

 

[ajd132]

We are rolling after mole draining spring barley and spring beans
we may get rain tonight
if the forecast was wetter I would not be rolling

My thoughts exactly. We are also moling spring barley