Sheep grazing barley

[Cab-over Pete]

I’ve no experience with grazing barley, except for Dad saying he used to do it, but had an interesting result once.

@Mr Charisma asked me to spread some lime on a really hard frost. To cut a long story short the only place to tip the lime was just inside the gate in a field of barley. Ground was rock hard, lorries and JCB Loadall didn’t make a mark but, as you can imagine, the barley plants were sheared clean off at ground level by the JCB bucket blade. Maybe 80 square metres lost to benefit 40 odd acres if I recall correctly.

Fast forward to July and I drive by the field at take a quick glance in. I had to reverse back for another look because I could barely tell where the lime had been tipped. Golden barley covered the whole patch. I’ve no idea how that bit yielded but to the eye it looked fine.

 

[farmerm]

Made mistake of walking though my Cassia to see it is full of mildew and swamped with wild oats. I usually avoid crop walking this time of year, better to remain ignorant to the problems when in a normal year I would need a hovercraft to consider any applications... With the current ground conditions would be half tempted to put on PK fert today if it had arrived, no doubt it will be too wet or too dry come spring.

I would need miles of electric fencing to graze mine

 

[Flat 10]

Made mistake of walking though my Cassia to see it is full of mildew and swamped with wild oats. I usually avoid crop walking this time of year, better to remain ignorant to the problems when in a normal year I would need a hovercraft to consider any applications... With the current ground conditions would be half tempted to put on PK fert today if it had arrived, no doubt it will be too wet or too dry come spring.

I would need miles of electric fencing to graze mine
View attachment 756412

On the advice of agron I gave mine a kg of powdered Mn. May not make any difference to yield but it hasn't broken the bank and may help retain tillers if it come wet when I want to put it on in March and can't travel. Plenty of mildew on mine too. I was surprised he thought it was a good idea. tried to get me to do a second BYDV spray (non deter seed). I decided not to as cold weather is forecast but as with @yellow belly I think it was on the other thread the T-SUM is well into the risk area post the previous spray so its my look out.
EDIT it was @shakerator not yellow belly sorry

 

[Devil's advocate]

Not to sure about that one I'm all for grazing crops but sure there's a growth stage that's a big no no take that out and plants won't do any good

I do agree with a commercial crop.

But we once ran ewes on stubble trying to kill winter barley, in fact we do so quite often. With potatoes or vegetables the following crop so no rush to plough. Grazed it hard at least 6 times & then gave it time to recover.

Looked superb in mid April deep green & growing well, but then we put the roundup on.

On the OP,

I guess grazing early sown barley won't help one jot with BYDV. Because it only needs one aphid to suck a plant.

Also not sure that sheep will even eat mildewed leaves,the trick is to graze it before the mildew develops.

 

[Mr Charisma]

I’ve no experience with grazing barley, except for Dad saying he used to do it, but had an interesting result once.

@Mr Charisma asked me to spread some lime on a really hard frost. To cut a long story short the only place to tip the lime was just inside the gate in a field of barley. Ground was rock hard, lorries and JCB Loadall didn’t make a mark but, as you can imagine, the barley plants were sheared clean off at ground level by the JCB bucket blade. Maybe 80 square metres lost to benefit 40 odd acres if I recall correctly.

Fast forward to July and I drive by the field at take a quick glance in. I had to reverse back for another look because I could barely tell where the lime had been tipped. Golden barley covered the whole patch. I’ve no idea how that bit yielded but to the eye it looked fine.

Think the yield meter shot up to about 15 ton / ha on that bit Pete.

 

[jonnyjon]

On the advice of agron I gave mine a kg of powdered Mn. May not make any difference to yield but it hasn't broken the bank and may help retain tillers if it come wet when I want to put it on in March and can't travel. Plenty of mildew on mine too. I was surprised he thought it was a good idea. tried to get me to do a second BYDV spray (non deter seed). I decided not to as cold weather is forecast but as with @yellow belly I think it was on the other thread the T-SUM is well into the risk area post the previous spray so its my look out.
EDIT it was @shakerator not yellow belly sorry

A 2nd spray? The guy who used to tell me to spray 1 time, got himself sacked

 

[Mr Charisma]

A 2nd spray? The guy who used to tell me to spray 1 time, got himself sacked

When you have had a days combing and only filled 5 ten ton trailers up of 85 acres because of BYDV then it concentrates the mind , 2 years ago I sprayed all my wheat for BYDV except for one field , only reason it wasn't sprayed was that when I turned up Severn Trent had dug the gateway up and I had no access ,,,, that field was 2 . 7 ton / acre instead of nearly 4 ,,,,, it concentrates the mind

 

[jonnyjon]

When you have had a days combing and only filled 5 ten ton trailers up of 85 acres because of BYDV then it concentrates the mind , 2 years ago I sprayed all my wheat for BYDV except for one field , only reason it wasn't sprayed was that when I turned up Severn Trent had dug the gateway up and I had no access ,,,, that field was 2 . 7 ton / acre instead of nearly 4 ,,,,, it concentrates the mind

Fair point but as long as we continue to kill aphids or so called pests with sprays or dressings the problem will only get worse. We in our infinite wisdom have created our own problems, we have created the conditions for something to become a pest and just going out seeking to kill that pest, the problem will just get worse. I used to spray aphids twice per crop, have not sprayed any in 3 years, or used as seed dressing

 

[Flat 10]

Fair point but as long as we continue to kill aphids or so called pests with sprays or dressings the problem will only get worse. We in our infinite wisdom have created our own problems, we have created the conditions for something to become a pest and just going out seeking to kill that pest, the problem will just get worse. I used to spray aphids twice per crop, have not sprayed any in 3 years, or used as seed dressing

We need bydv resistance in cereals

 

[jonnyjon]

We need bydv resistance in cereals

We need to stop creating our own problems in farming

 

[Bury the Trash]

Fair point but as long as we continue to kill aphids or so called pests with sprays or dressings the problem will only get worse. We in our infinite wisdom have created our own problems, we have created the conditions for something to become a pest and just going out seeking to kill that pest, the problem will just get worse. I used to spray aphids twice per crop, have not sprayed any in 3 years, or used as seed dressing

So what do you do now that is different?

Global warming is going to take some keeping up with.

 

[Flat 10]

We need to stop creating our own problems in farming

Bydv is hardly our fault imo

 

[jonnyjon]

So what do you do now that is different?

Global warming is going to take some keeping up with.

I don't have all the answers, but continuing on the way we're going is not an option. Applying Agri chemicals in ever increasing amounts, including fertilizer, tillage and little or no diversity are the main causes of pest, disease and weed problems imo

 

[Audlem Agron]

The mildew is not due to it being too far forward. Grazing risks loosing tillers - barley yield comes from tillers. If the sheep graze these off you’ll struggle to replace them. Grazing will introduce an extra physiological challenge in addition to the mildew. Recovery is then an issue. It’s your risk. If it was my barley I wouldn’t.

 

[Cab-over Pete]

Graze some of it, leave some of it.

By July you’ll know what you should have done.

 

[Goldilocks]

Pictures show the 2016 trial. Photos taken on 16th Feb.2017 trial ( no photos taken ) was first few days of March from memory.

 

[Flat 10]

Pictures show the 2016 trial. Photos taken on 16th Feb.2017 trial ( no photos taken ) was first few days of March from memory.

Wow it was forward in 2016 and wow you let them take a fair bit off!

 

[Brisel]

Pictures show the 2016 trial. Photos taken on 16th Feb.2017 trial ( no photos taken ) was first few days of March from memory.

What was the yield difference? I can see why you wanted to graze some!

 

[Way out West]

always graze our cereals, wheat barley and oats, done everything deemed to be wrong i.e overgrazed , grazed to well on in march all against our agronomists advice but must say gone on to be a better crop every time. would say do it with out a worry

 

[jonnyjon]

The mildew is not due to it being too far forward. Grazing risks loosing tillers - barley yield comes from tillers. If the sheep graze these off you’ll struggle to replace them. Grazing will introduce an extra physiological challenge in addition to the mildew. Recovery is then an issue. It’s your risk. If it was my barley I wouldn’t.

The more forwards that crops are here, the more mildew they have