Feldspar
Member
- Location
- Essex, Cambs and Suffolk
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?