Schoolboy organic arable questions...

Wigeon

Member
Arable Farmer
Can anyone give me pointers on the fixed cost side of organic combinables?

At the moment as a one man band I can whip round with the sprayer at 36m and average say 15ha/hr including filling. With say 7/8 times through winter cereals and 3 times on liquid N, I have a pretty good idea on timings and cost of growing the crop.

Pondering organic however. What would I be looking at? Have 1x 130hp and 1x200hp tractors and 360ha.

Assuming establishment basically the same though plus ploughng 1yr in 5 to break leys, would this be fair enough:?

Harrow comb- once in autumn, twice spring? Say 12m Harrow at 10k- 8ha/hr? Fields generally long and straight.

Inter-row hoe, twice spring? 6m at 8k? 3ha/hr? Need rtk too.

Weed surf?

Muckspread(assuming can get it) and incorporation.

Anything else?

Many thanks and sorry if this is a bit basic!

Wigeon
 

Wigeon

Member
Arable Farmer
Thanks. At the moment most winter cereals are solo, toptilth/cultipress, drill, roll, with occasional paddle rolling before drilling for weed flushes. Spring cereals/beans and rape are generally done with Mzuri.
 

Wigeon

Member
Arable Farmer
Thanks, though more a question of costs than speed, though clearly timeliness etc is always relevant. I look at operations in exactly the same way as variable costs and buy in what suits or I can't do.

Rotation wise I certainly wouldn't be growing rape which is enough of a headache conventionally, but more like 2xley, wheat, spring oats, beans, spring barley. Or similar.
 

T Hectares

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Berkshire
I wouldn’t worry too much about cultivation costing, if weeds need cultivating do it, there isn’t much of a second chance with Organic farming...

Focus more on building fertility and keeping couch out, your rotation to me looks like you are planning to crop more than the fertility you will build, my clients generally have 3 year ley’s followed by two years of cereal cropping.

FWIW I have been arable contracting for 3 years on a couple of 20 year + Organic farms and the biggest issue is Couch grass, summer fallows and multiple passes are needed to get on top of this, one block which was cropped last year was to be put into grass after a summer fallow to hit the couch but without ploughing, it has had 6 passes of various cultivators to achieve this, it’s costly !!
Once the crops are established generally my customers don’t do much, maybe a spring roll to help tillering and a bit of Harrow combing on the worst blw fields, none have invested in inter row hoes or weed surfers
 

Wigeon

Member
Arable Farmer
Hmm, 6 passes does sound expensive! Rather like George Hendersons approach in the farming ladder of repeated ploughing until the couch is exhausted.

Thanks re rotation too.
 

TomB

Member
Location
Wiltshire
I wouldn’t worry too much about cultivation costing, if weeds need cultivating do it, there isn’t much of a second chance with Organic farming...

Focus more on building fertility and keeping couch out, your rotation to me looks like you are planning to crop more than the fertility you will build, my clients generally have 3 year ley’s followed by two years of cereal cropping.

FWIW I have been arable contracting for 3 years on a couple of 20 year + Organic farms and the biggest issue is Couch grass, summer fallows and multiple passes are needed to get on top of this, one block which was cropped last year was to be put into grass after a summer fallow to hit the couch but without ploughing, it has had 6 passes of various cultivators to achieve this, it’s costly !!
Once the crops are established generally my customers don’t do much, maybe a spring roll to help tillering and a bit of Harrow combing on the worst blw fields, none have invested in inter row hoes or weed surfers

I was driving past a block of organic arable nearby the other day. It seems to be in continuous spring barley, winter ploughed. It is that green with couch that you might be mistaken in thinking it was under sown. My only thought was that no one would notice if it was rounduped 24hrs pre ploughing.

I don’t think I’d make an organic farmer.

I also question weather a stockless organic system is sustainable?
 

T Hectares

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Berkshire
I used to farm near another long term successful Organic farm that had two year leys fb 2 yrs cropping with summer fallows between the grass and Cereals.

The arable cropping can be nicely profitable, making money from the fertility building phase is more challenging, most of the farms I deal with now take the BPS and let the grazing during this phase and concentrate on the Arable
 

T Hectares

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Berkshire
I was driving past a block of organic arable nearby the other day. It seems to be in continuous spring barley, winter ploughed. It is that green with couch that you might be mistaken in thinking it was under sown. My only thought was that no one would notice if it was rounduped 24hrs pre ploughing.

I don’t think I’d make an organic farmer.

I also question weather a stockless organic system is sustainable?
A Friend of mine tried stockless Arable, it worked for a few years....


Now farmed conventionally !!
 

Raynard

Member
Location
South
Yarp. As above. Minimum I would go for on our soil is red clover / legume 2 yrs, spring wheat, winter oats, cover crop, spring oats undersown. Add 1 yr on fert building if grazing herbal ley. Loads of fym / om, preferably every yr. plough, cult, drill, roll. Einbock if weather and soil conditions allow.
Stockless farms viable, but as I see it livestock gives you heaps of options.
Possibly of share farming with livestock Enterprise?
 

Martyn

Member
Location
South west
I know a silly question for you arable lot, but we are just starting organic arable along side, dairy, beef, sheep, grassed based livestock so hoping to sell cereal.
how do you go about making a fallow feild? plough it early spring and leave empty for 12 monthe?
 

T Hectares

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Berkshire
Does a long term fallow add anything to the bottom line? Why not plant a catch crop and graze it to help with weed control and fertility building?
Fallow adds lots to the bottom line if the aim of it is to control Couch...

Summer fallows are what I’m referring to, ie ploughing after a cut of hay / silage in late June / early July and then cultivating as it greens up to expose the rhizomes to the sun, maybe 3 times before drilling a winter cereal in October...

Frosts can be effective too, so early winter ploughing and doing the same over winter can work

What is apparent to me with Organic arable is that in the conventional life we have forgotten how much of an issue Couch was pre glypho, the BG of its time !! and fallows are as effective as the weather allows, a wet summer less effective, my main Organic customer swears on a fallow planted with Mustard to sort the Couch, she claims an alleopathic effect from the root exudate..

It’s a good job the leys build some resilient soils, as you hammer the life out of them through the cropping part, undoing the good work imo, if only a bit of glypho to allow some non inversion cults / DD and a few herbicides could used, and maybe a bit of N and minimal fungs.....oh wait that’s called mixed farming ;)
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 80 42.3%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 66 34.9%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 15.9%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 7 3.7%

Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

  • 1,292
  • 1
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/
Top