betweenthelines
Member
- Location
- southwest
Oh to farm in the East…..
Or to only grow grain on suitable land
Roundup onto cuttin ground
- Thread starter daveydiesel1
- Start date
Or to only grow grain on suitable land
- Location
- Montgomeryshire
Like anywhere with small fields bounded by hedges and woodland and, heaven forbid any of those ‘in field’ ancient oaks that dare to shade crops and slow ripening?
I have fields that are in shade all afternoon from early August onwards, as they are bounded by deciduous woodland that’s several hundred years old. They would stay green into October without a little help, with late drilled Spring crops after grazed forage crops (like what the ELMS lot want for increasing soil OM).
The other alternative is put a drying capability in for my 70ac of cereals, then hope those pesky early morning dews we get for most of the year here bugger off in October, so that we can bale some musty straw.
Plenty in the North and West of the UK will be in a similar position with spring crops I expect.
dannewhouse
Member
- Location
- huddersfield
Does everyone go at the full 4 l/ha label rate on spring barley?
- Location
- Montgomeryshire
I only ever use 2L/ha of generic 360 Glyphosate on pre-harvest Spring Barley (plus water conditioner). If there was couch in there that needed killing out, I would certainly up the rate though.
- Location
- Ceredigion
Do you test your water, ours does not need conditioning
betweenthelines
Member
- Location
- southwest
Our why our grandfathers could plough down grassland with a T20 and two furrow plough perfectly well without spraying it off first?
betweenthelines
Member
- Location
- southwest
Cereals were grown without the benefit of "ripening by Roundup" 50 years ago. Cereal growing has since expanded into and beyond areas that used to be considered "marginal" for grain crops, as can be seen by the amount of crops that can't ripen naturally.
Farmers may well say that using a weedkiller in this way is innovative, but it might well lead to such practices (and weedkillers) being banned.
- Location
- Ceredigion
Granfathers have left Centuries of weed seed in the soil for Grandchildren to deal with , any field that could crop around here is full of fat hen and chickweed
- Location
- South Molton
Don't need the Soil Association picking holes in chemical use your managing to do it yourselves 
- Location
- Ardrossan Ayrshire
Cereals used to be cut before they were ready to thrash and stooked, then they would die off completely with no chemical assistance. Probably the advance of the combine harvester did more to reduce grain growing in stock areas partly due to harvesting and partly due to grain getting cheaper in real terms as cheaper to harvest.
Dont forget Fallow and summer working (cultivating ) out weed was part of their strategy as well.
- Location
- Ceredigion
When I used to haul straw in the 70ts most farms had their own small Combine , they would wait 3cweeks for the wheat to come after the barley then the spring barley last ,smaller farms , these big farms if today with massive combines can't afford to hang about
weathers been so bad we haven't started yet , have a go tomorrow i hope , moved out and put the header on tonight.
got some spring a barley that wont be fit for a week or 2 but ive got far more patience these days than when i was younger...
and with older kit you jolly well need some patience as well sometimes
- Location
- Welshpool Powys
They did not have any form of chemical control though did they.
- Location
- our house, Norn Iron
Grain is different today tho, it's a bit like a racehorse, bread for top yields & pushed to within an inch of it's life, but the straw hasn't the strength to hold it up so if it get's a bit of dodgy weather it's either flat or the head is on the floor.
Yield then 30 cwt, if it's not double that today it's dissapointing, bit of a generalisation I know.