Spring oats

[Feldspar]

We normally go the other way: my spring linseed is followed by spring oats normally. In any case the main problems with spring oats are:

1) You will be cutting a week after your neighbours have cut and probably baled their barley.
2) The straw, while beautiful, will even after 2 weeks of dessication, need a week to 2 weeks drying properly for use as bedding. Unless you sell to horsey folk for £3 a bale. One option I havent tried is, as you can harvest oats even with about a foot of green straw, would be to round bale the straw at high moisture and chop at the same time and wrap for silage.
3) The volunteers just outcompete anything you plant.

Yes, they are better than barley on clay. But I think we have a good place for them to get our extended breaks for wheat (thats why we followed with OSR, I remember) but they do not fit in as easy in a wheat / rape etc rotation.

Not too worried about later harvest. Spring barley seems to come right when milling wheat is ready. Straw is slightly concerning, especially as local power station contractor said they weren't keen on spring barley straw because it is too green. Avadex should sort volunteers shouldn't it?

 

[franklin]

Avadex should be fine. Where I have put the rape in I used Falcon and it was so slow. I mean very, very slow. My fault. Beginners error. Might be easier to get straw as you are further south, but grain will be fit much earlier then straw. And when the grain mega fit, the straw still wont be. You will cut it with green in the straw knuckles and in the stubble. PLus side is it will smell lovely. But certainly have no fixed plans about following crop or cultivation until you see how the season pans out.

I dare say the land is in good enough nick to go and plough tomorow! Linseed and oat roots are mega.

 

[E_B]

Never grown spring oats, only winter. But have strip tilled wheat into it for the last three years, and establishment has been good each time, mainly on heavy land. Nice friable tilth to drill into. Straw baled, 120kg total N. Winter before last, the wheat after oats on clay did go yellow several times, put that down to a wet winter, lack of N, first year the land hadn't been ploughed in a long while. We plough for oats after wheat to control volunteers.

 

[Brisel]

Never grown spring oats, only winter. But have strip tilled wheat into it for the last three years, and establishment has been good each time, mainly on heavy land. Nice friable tilth to drill into. Straw baled, 120kg total N. Winter before last, the wheat after oats on clay did go yellow several times, put that down to a wet winter, lack of N, first year the land hadn't been ploughed in a long while. We plough for oats after wheat to control volunteers.

What did you use to control oat volunteers in the following wheat & did you chit the stubbles after harvest?

 

[juke]

What did you use to control oat volunteers in the following wheat & did you chit the stubbles after harvest?

Topik will sort the volunteer oats out

 

[Tractor Boy]

Have I been lucky? I drilled a cc mix of oil radish,oats,rye,phacelia into my chopped spring oat straw with my 750.
It came well with only 30kg/ha N. The cc is good although with the volunteers it’s a bit cereal heavy.
I’m now hoping a dd crop of linseed in April will establish well and am hoping most of the straw will have gone by then.

 

[Feldspar]

Any opinions on the best variety of spring oats? Seems to be a £1/t premium from some people for Elyann over something like Canyon or Yukon.

 

[franklin]

So long as the mill will take them, it seems to make no difference. Finally changed from Atego to Canyon last year. Winters a different story. Just down to end user acceptability. If buying new seed, then get the newest, snazziest so long as they promise to buy them back.

 

[Feldspar]

So long as the mill will take them, it seems to make no difference. Finally changed from Atego to Canyon last year. Winters a different story. Just down to end user acceptability. If buying new seed, then get the newest, snazziest so long as they promise to buy them back.

Yukon better than Canyon?

 

[franklin]

I dont know. I wont buy a variety that is P1 or P2 due to so many flash-in-the-pan jobs. Look at Firth - been about for ages and Yukon etc are only marginally higher yielding than one degree of statistical significance. There is a variety called Montrose which is essentially being dumped off the list despite only being listed in 2015, so one year of being fully recommended. Unlike winters, which is essentially dominated by the pretty variety Mascani, I think all springs are acceptable for milling subject to quality.