State of your crops -2022

[4course]

Delayed uptake of second dose of n has left some whet a bit thin. Where we hoofed it on early is much better

Ive gone back to putting the first lot of n on as early as we can like we did years ago, and not afraid to put a smidge on to help establishment. It has certainly helped here with a slight reduction in total usage. However a thinner crop doesnt always yield less as if the weathers with you at grain fill 1000 grain weight can compensate but its not a reliable strategy ive found

 

[teslacoils]

Id always prefer to manage a thick crop. But yeah we need to be shoving 1/3 of the total on on Valentines Day if urea. Easy.

 

[glasshouse]

Could be worse. 9 years ago todayView attachment 1036892

Sure it was 9?

 

[Renaultman]

Sure it was 9?

That's what my phone said although 10 (2012) was the really bad one;(

 

[glasshouse]

That's what my phone said although 10 (2012) was the really bad one;(

I thought spring 13 was dry and cold, lots of snow.
Could be wrong

 

[Two Tone]

Just for balance @Two Tone , linseed planted 12 days ago with 750a, now making a nice row.
Getting 75kg N today.View attachment 1037612View attachment 1037614

Our Winter Linseed was DD drilled with a Weaving GD. Winter Linseed seems to like DD’ing.

This Extase wheat seems to like it too

As does this Mulika Spring wheat drilled into 2nd year AB9 last October

This is what it looked like the day I drilled it!

 

[Two Tone]

This Bazooka Hybrid Winter barley was conventionally ploughed and Combi drilled, because this field wasn’t quite ready for DD’ing yet because it is poisoned with Blackgrass and I wanted to bury as much of the BG seed as possible one last time before selling the plough and Combi drill.

Maybe I should have added some Terpal and put it on with the T2 at Awn emergence!
At least this is the cleanest against BG I have ever seen this field.

 

[ajd132]

Our Winter Linseed was DD drilled with a Weaving GD. Winter Linseed seems to like DD’ing.

This Extase wheat seems to like it too
View attachment 1037679

As does this Mulika Spring wheat drilled into 2nd year AB9 last October
View attachment 1037673


This is what it looked like the day I drilled it!
View attachment 1037670

Extase seems to be a very good direct drilling drilling variety

 

[Salopian_Will]

Extase seems to be a very good direct drilling drilling variety

It does have a lot of vigour but is shy at tillering. Wide row, strip tilled extase after beans looks great but still has not met in the rows. Will need to wait until the harvest results but looking at it I think it needs a much higher seed rate compared to other varieties.

 

[ajd132]

It does have a lot of vigour but is shy at tillering. Wide row, strip tilled extase after beans looks great but still has not met in the rows. Will need to wait until the harvest results but looking at it I think it needs a much higher seed rate compared to other varieties.

Last year ours did 9.96t/ha on 25cm rows after osr. It was abit Blackgrassy but I’m confident it was one of the higher yielding crops of wheat in the area.

 

[Two Tone]

Extase seems to be a very good direct drilling drilling variety

To be fair, so does DD’d Bazooka Hybrid barley. Especially as it is drilled at such a low seed rate (80 - 100kgs/ha).
I should have taken a picture of some of it too.
My rotation is Winter Linseed, W Wheat, W Barley.
The Linseed stubble is darker and quickly rots, so you see the Wheat come above it and through it much quicker and it soon looks good.
However, you don’t see the Barley and the Linseed get above the previous cereal crop stubble until at least the end of March the following Spring. You could easily be mistaken into thinking it isn’t even drilled and has some green volunteers growing underneath it.
The Barley won’t look quite so thick as when conventionally drilled, yet will yield the same if not more!

The cure for your May depression at seeing Blackgrass @ajd132 is old age. Suddenly you realise that you did everything you could, but the f’ing stuff still beat you. Pointless in beating yourself up about it and blaming yourself.

And by the way, you were up early for a Sunday!

Here is a photo of my DD’d barley taken 10 days ago

 

[ajd132]

To be fair, so does DD’d Bazooka Hybrid barley. Especially as it is drilled at such a low seed rate (80 - 100kgs/ha).
I should have taken a picture of some of it too.
My rotation is Winter Linseed, W Wheat, W Barley.
The Linseed stubble is darker and quickly rots, so you see the Wheat come above it and through it much quicker and it soon looks good.
However, you don’t see the Barley and the Linseed get above the previous cereal crop stubble until at least the end of March the following Spring. You could easily be mistaken into thinking it isn’t even drilled and has some green volunteers growing underneath it.
The Barley won’t look quite so thick as when conventionally drilled, yet will yield the same if not more!

The cure for your May depression at seeing Blackgrass @ajd132 is old age. Suddenly you realise that you did everything you could, but the f’ing stuff still beat you. Pointless in beating yourself up about it and blaming yourself.

And by the way, you were up early for a Sunday!

Here is a photo of my DD’d barley taken 10 days ago
View attachment 1037731

I have 2 very young children hence why I’m always up early.
blackgrass is something we have kind of learnt to accept but its still very annoying. However we did drill extremely early and pushed loads of wheat where we wouldn’t usually. Apart from a few patches it’s not too bad just looks messy. Can then grow a couple spring crops with the expensive fert to clean them up again. My whole home farm apart from a few oats on a rented block and 12ha of spring barley is all wheat and rape this year, grown with cheap fert. So should be a bonanza. Next half the farm will be wheat after osr and the rest spring barley, spring oats and winter beans depending on various BG levels.

I can’t get my head around hybrid barley I’m afraid, we are growing winter malting electrum which seems to do well for us and is cheap to grow.

 

[Two Tone]

It does have a lot of vigour but is shy at tillering. Wide row, strip tilled extase after beans looks great but still has not met in the rows. Will need to wait until the harvest results but looking at it I think it needs a much higher seed rate compared to other varieties.

I’ve noticed that too this year, but not so much last year. It is also much shorter this year and I’m almost regretting putting any PGR on it.
Some did get an Atlantis type product and that acts as a full rate PGR. I rely on crop height as part of my ammunition against BG. Taller, more vigorous varieties certainly give better control than shorter ones.

Could it be the drought that has sent the plants into desperation and ear emergence at the expense of tillering and straw length, sooner this year?

They say that never does the Month of May go by without an Ear of Wheat somewhere on the farm. But this year it will be flowering by the end of May. It was at Ear emergence as I T2’d it last week and it probably won’t get a T3.

 

[Two Tone]

I have 2 very young children hence why I’m always up early.
blackgrass is something we have kind of learnt to accept but its still very annoying. However we did drill extremely early and pushed loads of wheat where we wouldn’t usually. Apart from a few patches it’s not too bad just looks messy. Can then grow a couple spring crops with the expensive fert to clean them up again. My whole home farm apart from a few oats on a rented block and 12ha of spring barley is all wheat and rape this year, grown with cheap fert. So should be a bonanza. Next half the farm will be wheat after osr and the rest spring barley, spring oats and winter beans depending on various BG levels.

I can’t get my head around hybrid barley I’m afraid, we are growing winter malting electrum which seems to do well for us and is cheap to grow.

You have my sympathies. They do grow up and then eventually won’t get out of bed!

I use Hybrid Winter barley as another tool in the war against BG. Even though it is drilled at such a low seed rate, it certainly is effective.
3 out of 4 years, Spring sown crops are disappointing on this farm.
It is 2nd Wheats where BG suddenly gets much worse, so I try never to grow them.

I have a block of land that was so bad for BG, that I put it into 5 year Mid Tier Stewardship, growing GS4 Herb and legume rich Pasture. Using it as haylage for my Deer enterprise.
They said it releases an enzyme that kills BG. I’m not so sure. However, I DD’s straight into the Roundup’d GS4 last September and there isn’t any BG in it at all!

Th BG in that block was so bad in 2013, that it yielded less than 1 tonne/ha of wheat!
That is why and when I started using Hybrid barley, even as a 1st (and 2nd) white straw crop on that block.

It does wonders for that annual May depression!

 

[ajd132]

You have my sympathies. They do grow up and then eventually won’t get out of bed!

I use Hybrid Winter barley as another tool in the war against BG. Even though it is drilled at such a low seed rate, it certainly is effective.
3 out of 4 years, Spring sown crops are disappointing on this farm.
It is 2nd Wheats where BG suddenly get much worse, so I try never to grow them.

I have a block of land that was so bad for BG, that I put it into 5 year Mid Tier Stewardship, growing GS4 Herb and legume rich Pasture. Using it as haylage for my Deer enterprise.
They said it releases an enzyme that kills BG. I’m not so sure. However, I DD’s straight into the Roundup’d GS4 last September and there isn’t any BG in it at all!

Th BG in that block was so bad in 2013, that it yielded less than 1 tonne/ha of wheat!
That is why and when I started using Hybrid barley, even as a 1st (and 2nd) white straw crop on that block.

It does wonders for that annual May depression!

I just keep reminding myself that our second wheat, although abit messy should still yield well and be worth a lot of money!
Wheat after spring oats is fairly clean, a good chunk of second wheat is pretty clean to be fair. Wheat after rape is often bad in patches and nothing new there this year.
Osr this year is looking mega and a crop wall to wall. Can’t see any of the blackgrass under the canopy like you often can when the crops not so good.

 

[Two Tone]

I just keep reminding myself that our second wheat, although abit messy should still yield well and be worth a lot of money!
Wheat after spring oats is fairly clean, a good chunk of second wheat is pretty clean to be fair. Wheat after rape is often bad in patches and nothing new there this year.
Osr this year is looking mega and a crop wall to wall. Can’t see any of the blackgrass under the canopy like you often can when the crops not so good.

I wanted to try Sensation Winter Barley this year but the seed never turned up, despite being ordered on1st May.
So in desperation, chanced growing a 2nd wheat on that land.
What a huge f’ing mistake that was here!
Some of it is really bad for BG! Even though that block was conventionally ploughed and combi drilled.

I’ll get away with the majority of it, even though it does look scruffy.
However, Barley prices are also good, it yields much better than 2n’d wheats, using less ferts and a complete fungicide program, compared to wheat.
I’m lucky insofar as i have a very good local home for it that I can deliver to.
So 2nd wheats are out for the majority of this farm in future……. Unless:

I hear that BASF have a new BG product, which if it works mighty be interesting. It is BG that prevents 2nd wheats yielding well here.

 

[ajd132]

I wanted to try Sensation Winter Barton this year but the seed never turned up, despite being ordered on1st May.
So in desperation, chanced growing a 2nd wheat on that land.
What a huge f’ing mistake that was here!
Some of it is really bad for BG! Even though that block was conventionally ploughed and combi drilled.

I’ll get away with the majority of it, even though it does look scruffy.
However, Barley prices are also good, it yields much better than 2n’d wheats, using less ferts and a complete fungicide program, compared to wheat.
I’m lucky insofar as i have a very good local home for it that I can deliver to.
So 2nd wheats are out for the majority of this farm in future……. Unless:

I hear that BASF have a new BG product, which if it works mighty be interesting. It is BG that prevents 2nd wheats yielding well here.

I dont think the new one is going to be a game changer, its meant to be better for ryegrass and brome from what I’ve heard.
i dont think we will do much avadex next season but we will top everything up with more flufenacet. Where i did that, sparingly it has worked really well. I think we will just commit to doing it 3 weeks after pre em.

 

[robs1]

I dont think the new one is going to be a game changer, its meant to be better for ryegrass and brome from what I’ve heard.
i dont think we will do much avadex next season but we will top everything up with more flufenacet. Where i did that, sparingly it has worked really well. I think we will just commit to doing it 3 weeks after pre em.

The problem we seem to have created is late germinating stuff, at xmas couldnt see hardly any except in known wet spots, used some Broadway star on a nice day in march as I could see a few on plants, went into hospital for five weeks and came back for look last week and it's the worse I have ever had here. Going to need some serious thinking about where we go from here. Crops after grass break and spring oats are ok so far

 

[ajd132]

The problem we seem to have created is late germinating stuff, at xmas couldnt see hardly any except in known wet spots, used some Broadway star on a nice day in march as I could see a few on plants, went into hospital for five weeks and came back for look last week and it's the worse I have ever had here. Going to need some serious thinking about where we go from here. Crops after grass break and spring oats are ok so far

Yeh similar here. Like I’ve said loads of times on here it’s just about keeping it a tolerable level these days I think. Zero tolerance will only work on places in the country it’s just creeping in.

 

[teslacoils]

Totally agree. This year's BG is almost all spring germinated, single stemmed crap. But inevitable it will have huge heads and top up the weed seed bank. All very annoying. Apart from that crops look decent if you take into account spring herbicide damage from the proverb (?) Which has cost at least a ton per acre.