Swathing of cereals and cover crop opportunities

[shakerator]

I understand you can swath cereals into a narrow windrows at 30% moisture and be combining within 7 days.

Leaving a trash free area between swaths for establishing covers then the combine chopper covers them nicely when emerging with no hairpinning.

More efficient use of sunlight earlier in the year and without glyphosate?

Or loss of fungicide investment as we are led to budge the flag needs to be green until an hour before harvest?

 

[martian]

I think swathing cereals is quite common in Oz, you want a Draper header to pick the swaths up, ideally. Always thought it was a bit of a faff, but you've got me thinking now...

 

[Baling Hay]

I can't understand why more people don't swath instead of using roundup. Especially barley were the heads can fall off if delayed harvest.

 

[DrWazzock]

All very well if it stays dry.
If it rains it's a disaster.

OSR is thick stemmed with long stubble so sits up off the ground.

Cereals, beans etc just go down to the worms if it keeps raining.

 

[yellow belly]

after last nights rain and more on the way swathed wheat would be a dead loss

swathing wheat and the uk weather do not mix very well

 

[SilliamWhale]

after last nights rain and more on the way swathed wheat would be a dead loss

swathing wheat and the uk weather do not mix very well

It sounds like a nightmare.

I swathed barley in West Australia for a season with a towed draper header but for them a wet day was 3mm.

 

[DrWazzock]

Dad used to swath it with the old binder before combining. If it stayed dry it did a fantastic job, but one year it didn't and the combine ended up trying to rake up a wet barley swath out of chickweed that had grown through and over it. That was the last year that cereals were swathed here.

When my brother worked on a big estate, they swathed the winter beans one year, but same thing happened. Ended up raking them up wetter than if they been left standing.

 

[yorkie]

when I was at Berwick we used to swath all w barley a week before ready to ripen volunteer wheat,tried some wheat one year,evan tried linseed once,all was picked up with draper we made

 

[shakerator]

It wouldn't look good after this rain for sure.

But I just feel that this is the key time where DD struggles.... Ripe crops, nothing green growing (residual/ sulfuylurea use, dissicant applied rendering auto cast methods unreliable) soils getting wet as a result. Grass is still growing fast and will keep the soil active