Stubble Turnips.

Brisel

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Midlands
Tightarse alert....

Can you get away with not using fert ?
Does it matter if volunteers aren't sprayed off, sheep will eat them anyway ?.

At £60 / acre there's not going to be much money in it with tack sheep ?:scratchhead:

No fert = less than half the yield.
Volunteers provide early season crop competition. The spray is only about £6/acre.

Would you buy a nice car and fit bald tyres to it?
 

neilo

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Montgomeryshire
Tightarse alert....

Can you get away with not using fert ?
Does it matter if volunteers aren't sprayed off, sheep will eat them anyway ?.

At £60 / acre there's not going to be much money in it with tack sheep ?:scratchhead:

Without Nitrogen, turnips won't yield very well at all. A crop grown that way won't pay anything much for tack sheep.

If you don't spray the volunteers off, they grow thickly and swamp the turnips out. The cereal volunteers will provide very little feed compared to the root crop they displace.
 

Brisel

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Midlands
Thanks for that. Out with the calculator again.Might be better just growing a green manure, and forgetting about sheep........

That's a different way of thinking - with a green manure you're accepting cost without direct income from grazing. I'll bet it isn't much different in cost from more tailored cover crops though brassicas are very good at producing lots of biomass in the autumn & they aren't as good for the soil life as other things like legumes. You have the side benefit of a bit of grazing later on unless you want to mulch the greenery back into the soil at the end.

I dare say @Great In Grass and @Kevtherev are still watching this thread. ;)
 

neilo

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Montgomeryshire
That's a different way of thinking - with a green manure you're accepting cost without direct income from grazing. I'll bet it isn't much different in cost from more tailored cover crops though brassicas are very good at producing lots of biomass in the autumn & they aren't as good for the soil life as other things like legumes. You have the side benefit of a bit of grazing later on unless you want to mulch the greenery back into the soil at the end.

I dare say @Great In Grass and @Kevtherev are still watching this thread. ;)

I suppose you could always chuck some cheap (if there are such things) legumes in the brassica mix, if you wanted more crop diversity for soil health. I dare say the grazing sheep wouldn't mind them, but you could always incorporate the lot if you really wanted to.
 

hendrebc

Member
Livestock Farmer
Tightarse alert....

Can you get away with not using fert ?
Does it matter if volunteers aren't sprayed off, sheep will eat them anyway ?.

At £60 / acre there's not going to be much money in it with tack sheep ?:scratchhead:
Ive done a field of rape a few times after barley and didnt spray volunteers. The barley filled out the bottom of the rape nicely and lambs grazed it fine
 

7610 super q

Never Forgotten
Honorary Member
What about kale ?
I'm thinking of something that could be grazed by tack sheep, but if I couldn't do a deal and get some for the right money, could be ploughed in as a green manure.....

Sorry for the thread hi- jack....
 

Great In Grass

Member
Location
Cornwall.
What about kale ?
I'm thinking of something that could be grazed by tack sheep, but if I couldn't do a deal and get some for the right money, could be ploughed in as a green manure.....

Sorry for the thread hi- jack....
I think I've posted this elsewhere :scratchhead: but in your case you could grow a low cost brassica mix of Hybrid Kale, Mustard, Stubble Turnips and Green Globe turnips, quick growing with great ground cover. Ideal for short term biomass and superb root development. If anyone has heavy wet soils this mix would be great. £11.50/4kg/acre (min 8 acres) delivered. Cheap as chips!:)
 

7610 super q

Never Forgotten
Honorary Member
I think I've posted this elsewhere :scratchhead: but in your case you could grow a low cost brassica mix of Hybrid Kale, Mustard, Stubble Turnips and Green Globe turnips, quick growing with great ground cover. Ideal for short term biomass and superb root development. If anyone has heavy wet soils this mix would be great. £11.50/4kg/acre (min 8 acres) delivered. Cheap as chips!:)
I seem to remember that, but sowing at the end of August was too late ?
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 78 42.9%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 63 34.6%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 16.5%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 5 2.7%

Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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  • 1
As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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