Spring drilling on the green?

[Michael S]

What are people's thoughts on drilling on the green into cover crops in the spring? I get the impression that the feeling is that it doesn't work well in general under normal UK conditions?

 

[Fred]

Ive tried it 3 times and each time has created issues, smearing , and cold wet soil , Personally now spray off early Jan ,
1 What is the soil type
2 What is the cover crop
3 What is the following crop
4 Do you have access to livestock
5 Tyne or disc

 

[Michael S]

Ive tried it 3 times and each time has created issues, smearing , and cold wet soil , Personally now spray off early Jan ,
1 What is the soil type
2 What is the cover crop
3 What is the following crop
4 Do you have access to livestock
5 Tyne or disc

1 Ragdale and Hanslope clays.
2 Phacilia, vetch, linseed, berseem clover, oats plus volunteer forage rape(crop before wheat) and volunteer wheat.
3 Peas.
4 Maybe but unlikely.
5 Simtech or possibly Moore.

 

[teslacoils]

1 Ragdale and Hanslope clays.

Aaaaaah.

Spray it off. Feb was too late to spray off last year. Dad did his early in December and it's only just gone nicely yellow by now.

 

[Andrew K]

I have sprayed our volunteer cover of Borage off which was approx 2 to 3 ft tall in December. I have not got the balls to leave it till Jan/feb as previous experience tends to back up the notion that too much cover too long will keep things wet on strong land in an average year. I think a thin cover would sometimes be ok in that scenario but usually we are struggling to dry things out and a Tine drill would probably struggle in wet and trashy going. We will DD though .

 

[stroller]

I have not had much success with dd in the spring, last year 5ha of dd linseed yielded as much as 3ha established with discs and a old air drill, both had cover crops sprayed off in Jan.

 

[yellow belly]

Spray off as soon as can travel from mid January
if it is too wet then we have to wait not worth the tramline damage to force it
plant to drill early April when conditions are dry enough
March planted crops followed by wet cold week are the most disappointing spring crop
cultivation type makes no difference the weather is the biggest factor
later drilling needs higher seed rates

 

[tr250]

Spray off as soon as can travel from mid January
if it is too wet then we have to wait not worth the tramline damage to force it
plant to drill early April when conditions are dry enough
March planted crops followed by wet cold week are the most disappointing spring crop
cultivation type makes no difference the weather is the biggest factor
later drilling needs higher seed rates

This☝

 

[SilliamWhale]

It's risky. Its one part of the jigsaw I can't figure out.

Works for beans. Terrible for barley

 

[fred.950]

It's risky. Its one part of the jigsaw I can't figure out.

Works for beans. Terrible for barley

We have found DD spring barley actually works better here than autumn crops. Chalk soil though!

 

[SilliamWhale]

We have found DD spring barley actually works better here than autumn crops. Chalk soil though!

In a cover? Wonder is it the reduced acidity

 

[Simon C]

It's risky. Its one part of the jigsaw I can't figure out.

Works for beans. Terrible for barley

The smaller the seed, the more tricky it is. Except for peas which need perfect seedbed conditions and hate even a whiff of glyphosate residue.

That's what I find anyway.

 

[fred.950]

In a cover? Wonder is it the reduced acidity

Yes always into a cover and we normally manage to drill relatively early because the ground is dry.