Baling Hay
Member
I suspect what they mean is to bale the straw and use it for livestock and then burn the remaining stubble with weed seeds and slugs in it.
Should we bring back straw burning - Poll
- Thread starter Baling Hay
- Start date
I suspect what they mean is to bale the straw and use it for livestock and then burn the remaining stubble with weed seeds and slugs in it.
Baling Hay
Member
Baling Hay
Member
I have just found some research on straw burning in Canada:
https://www.agronomy.org/publications/sssaj/abstracts/44/1/SS0440010103
"Long-term burning reduced total soil N and C and potentially mineralizable N in the 0- to 15-cm soil segment but did not affect humic and fulvic acids. Its effect on the soil surface tension was not conclusive, but burning seemed to increase the susceptibility of the soil to water erosion, reduced the permeability of the Melfort soil, and increased the compaction of the Indian Head soil. Burning stubble for up to 20 consecutive years had no significant effect on grain yields, perhaps because of the high initial fertility of the test soils. However, there are sufficient danger signals to indicate that this practice should be discouraged on the prairies."
https://www.agronomy.org/publications/sssaj/abstracts/44/1/SS0440010103
"Long-term burning reduced total soil N and C and potentially mineralizable N in the 0- to 15-cm soil segment but did not affect humic and fulvic acids. Its effect on the soil surface tension was not conclusive, but burning seemed to increase the susceptibility of the soil to water erosion, reduced the permeability of the Melfort soil, and increased the compaction of the Indian Head soil. Burning stubble for up to 20 consecutive years had no significant effect on grain yields, perhaps because of the high initial fertility of the test soils. However, there are sufficient danger signals to indicate that this practice should be discouraged on the prairies."
Dave Applesquasher
Member
- Location
- Cheshire
I was working in Kent and Essex in the days of straw burning. It was no wonder it got banned and rightly so.
Some days were nice and sunny until the fields were lit, then the sun just disappeared. Soot/ash blowing everywhere and I mean everywhere. My house was full of it. Black smudges on the everything.
"Must be cultivated within 24 hours of burning" what a joke that was, plenty of farmers interpreted that to mean a set of drag/zigzag harrows qualified, I even knew a fella that made a bar to drag 3 sets side by side to "comply". Made things ten times worse for raising the dust and soot.
Well remember one Friday towards the end of combining, rain was forecast for the weekend so no cutting to be done. The whole of Essex lit the fields so they could spend the weekend cultivating. It was like a nuclear winter for two days.
Not to mention all the hedges being set on fire at the same time (not that there were many left in Essex at that point)
Even remember flying back home from holiday in Greece, as we came over Essex all you could see was stubble fires.
Farmers are their own worse enemy at times. I don't care how inconvenient the ban is to you, you bloody deserved it!!
Some days were nice and sunny until the fields were lit, then the sun just disappeared. Soot/ash blowing everywhere and I mean everywhere. My house was full of it. Black smudges on the everything.
"Must be cultivated within 24 hours of burning" what a joke that was, plenty of farmers interpreted that to mean a set of drag/zigzag harrows qualified, I even knew a fella that made a bar to drag 3 sets side by side to "comply". Made things ten times worse for raising the dust and soot.
Well remember one Friday towards the end of combining, rain was forecast for the weekend so no cutting to be done. The whole of Essex lit the fields so they could spend the weekend cultivating. It was like a nuclear winter for two days.
Not to mention all the hedges being set on fire at the same time (not that there were many left in Essex at that point)
Even remember flying back home from holiday in Greece, as we came over Essex all you could see was stubble fires.
Farmers are their own worse enemy at times. I don't care how inconvenient the ban is to you, you bloody deserved it!!
Bringing back burning is the stupidest idea since blaming cows for farting and destroying the ozone. Somebody mentions it and it gets jumped on by people with nothing better to think about. Get real!!
JD-Kid
Member
- Location
- Akaroa.. New Zealand
think you may find canada it was all the straw not short stubble
i'll have a look for the links it was a few years ago
intresting thing in an ozzie trial SOC is lower under tillage than burn and drill programs
it is kinda a strange one bit like organic's plowing and full tillage Vs a burn and drill or spray and drill program
i'll have a look for the links it was a few years ago
intresting thing in an ozzie trial SOC is lower under tillage than burn and drill programs
it is kinda a strange one bit like organic's plowing and full tillage Vs a burn and drill or spray and drill program
Niels
Member
- Location
- Netherlands/Suffolk
Best reply on here by a long stretch.
I worked for someone who was a bit of a closet arsonist - he used to set light to the field before we had even finished combining it, never mind getting the headlands disced up as a fire break first... He was a very decent farmer & a nice bloke, just too damn handy with a box of matches!
People like that were the reason it got banned.
blackbob
Member
- Location
- Aberdeenshire
As I remember, wheat stubble doesn't burn that well anyway, does it? And rape not at all
We are still allowed to burn in Scotland, although no-one does, straw's too valuable!
For those too young to remember:
We are still allowed to burn in Scotland, although no-one does, straw's too valuable!
For those too young to remember:
ianw
Member
- Location
- east yorkshire
We had one like that,used to drive in the yard and "I've lit it you better get down there and drag headlands"I know local firemen moaned at first as it took a good cut out of there overtime,probably best it remains history now
- Location
- cambridgeshire
the after burn was worse than the burn
- Location
- cambridgeshire
and ditches clensed,no flailed grass to block up
ianw
Member
- Location
- east yorkshire
Same bloke I mentioned above used to like doing blocks of fields for that reason it still normally got away by time we dragged or disced a break.Then there was the "proffesionals" who had a 800 gallon weeks tanker and a couple of those fire beater stick's,quite what use they were when next doors standing wheat was burning I'll never know.
Davos
Member
- Location
- East Yorks
I remember burning some straw years ago and it seemed to create it's own wind.It set off after me faster than I could run, luckily the firebreak was'nt too far away, otherwise a singed arse was a distinct possibility.
- Location
- Bury St Edmunds
It was bloody good fun though as a young teenager at the time!
shakerator
Member
- Location
- LINCS
i don't think it will produce the results many growers are after in terms of grass weeds. but would make lesser tillage easier short term and quicker autumn nutrient hit and would help slugs
my view is pure arable farming without grass isn't that older pastime- 20+ years since the ban....how much was memories of farming being "easier" in the days of burning, as soils were better from mining mixed farming fertility, and how much good came from the burning itself?
im too young and probably wrong.... answers please old guard.......
my view is pure arable farming without grass isn't that older pastime- 20+ years since the ban....how much was memories of farming being "easier" in the days of burning, as soils were better from mining mixed farming fertility, and how much good came from the burning itself?
im too young and probably wrong.... answers please old guard.......
Robigus
Member
We had actually stopped burning a few years before the ban came in. A dear old boy who had ploughed on the farm for over 65 years reckoned it was the best thing that ever happened. He knew that the soil worked much better with in a couple of years. Every thing chopped and ploughed, nothing baled.
Sadly he has been gone for a while now, and now we are not even going to plough, strip tillage, again with all the straw chopped. I don't know what he would make of that.
But burning was fun. Scary some times, very time consuming and very messy. But fun.
Sadly he has been gone for a while now, and now we are not even going to plough, strip tillage, again with all the straw chopped. I don't know what he would make of that.
But burning was fun. Scary some times, very time consuming and very messy. But fun.