Seed dressings & No Till

Simon C

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Essex Coast
Do you ever have concerns about Microdochium Nivale?

Just looked through my wheat for seed tests, average for Bunt 0 - 0.3% seeds infected, Septoria all 0%, Microdochium Nivale 0 - 0.5%. So nothing worth bothering about and some of these tests were from second of third generations without treatments.
 

Simon C

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Essex Coast
Same pathogens in the soil whether it's ploughed or DD

Actually agree with this, but the point is that a no-till soil should be teaming with loads of beneficial microbes as well. The pathogens are never allowed to become dominant. Imagine a bunt spore on the surface of a wheat seed, it would make a nice breakfast for the swarm of good, clean up bacteria that should be right there in the soil, next to where the fresh seed is dropped in. Now imagine a "dead" soil (ploughed?) where there is nothing to clean up the pathogens, they have a chance to proliferate and take over.

It's the same with unhealthy people. Makes me curse every time the Dettol advert comes on the tele with the conscientious mother who goes round the house, trying to eliminate every nasty bacteria and then they wonder why so many kids have asthma and autoimmune diseases. What she needs to do is take them outside and drag them through a compost heap backwards and then chuck some mud over them.
 
Actually agree with this, but the point is that a no-till soil should be teaming with loads of beneficial microbes as well. The pathogens are never allowed to become dominant. Imagine a bunt spore on the surface of a wheat seed, it would make a nice breakfast for the swarm of good, clean up bacteria that should be right there in the soil, next to where the fresh seed is dropped in. Now imagine a "dead" soil (ploughed?) where there is nothing to clean up the pathogens, they have a chance to proliferate and take over.

It's the same with unhealthy people. Makes me curse every time the Dettol advert comes on the tele with the conscientious mother who goes round the house, trying to eliminate every nasty bacteria and then they wonder why so many kids have asthma and autoimmune diseases. What she needs to do is take them outside and drag them through a compost heap backwards and then chuck some mud over them.

I know what you mean as fungal spores are the first stage of decay
 
Just looked through my wheat for seed tests, average for Bunt 0 - 0.3% seeds infected, Septoria all 0%, Microdochium Nivale 0 - 0.5%. So nothing worth bothering about and some of these tests were from second of third generations without treatments.

Although it seems a miniscule level of bunt how many spores did the infected seed carry? consider if you had 0.1% of your plants infected that would be on average one plant per three sqm. At that level you have a crop right off unlike nivale or septoria which are nuisances not disasters.
I Use untreated seed sometimes but only with a nil score for bunt.
Unless great care is taken someone is going to f**k up big time soon.
 

martian

DD Moderator
BASE UK Member
Location
N Herts
We didn't sow a grain of dressed wheat seed last autumn or the one before, all seed tested by NIAB for bunt and Microdochium nivale and germination. We pay BSBP payments by the hectare which works out much cheaper and fairer, the seed is so cheap you don't mind putting it on a bit thicker in case a slug or rook eats the odd one. If anything goes wrong you can spray it off in the spring and try something else. That's what I call insurance.
Thinking about this today as it turns out the above is a lie. We bought two tonnes of barley seed that had Deter dressing on, which I'd forgotten about. Walking the fields today, that we've just sowed with osr and a variety of companion crops into, we were looking for flea beetle (very little) and slug damage. The only field that is showing any level of slug damage is behind the Deter treated barley. I'm not sure whether to tar all neonics with the same brush, but thiamethoxam has been shown to kill or severely impair ground beetles leading to a 5% decrease in soyabean yields due to slug attacks on treated crops...does anyone know of any evidence that prthioconazole and clothianidan aren't beetle friendly?
 

Louis Mc

Member
Location
Meath, Ireland
Thinking about this today as it turns out the above is a lie. We bought two tonnes of barley seed that had Deter dressing on, which I'd forgotten about. Walking the fields today, that we've just sowed with osr and a variety of companion crops into, we were looking for flea beetle (very little) and slug damage. The only field that is showing any level of slug damage is behind the Deter treated barley. I'm not sure whether to tar all neonics with the same brush, but thiamethoxam has been shown to kill or severely impair ground beetles leading to a 5% decrease in soyabean yields due to slug attacks on treated crops...does anyone know of any evidence that prthioconazole and clothianidan aren't beetle friendly?
I made the exact same observation when walking a cover crop following winter barley a few weeks ago. I was certain than there was much more slug damage in the areas of the field where there was Deter used in the previous crop of barley compared to the undressed home saved seed
 
0to0.3 is the lowest reading thy can give so if it was 0% it would still be given 0to 0.3


I have never seen a single head of bunt in the field in 40 years 18 of growing untreated seed Bunted head would stick out and be seen easily has any one other farmer seen it
I am not very keen on putting seed through a mobile cleaner in case it has had diseased grain through it
 

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

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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/
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