Under request from @Bokey I have decided to dedicate a thread to the trials and tribulations on the farm, I shall endeavour to splice the good with the bad. A bit about us, 600 acres all told, 450 cropable, 8 years into organic, mainly arable with a few wooly critters, an impatient old man and his fractious son (me!) Will endeavour to photograph the dogshit moments along with what else is going on here. I'll put a few pictures up of the last season to get it going....
The humble year of an organic farmer
- Thread starter L P
- Start date
February 2023 Kuhn Prolander on 8400 breaking ground down, hammer to crack a nut maybe, but it does a damned good job of pulling freshly germinated sow thistles to the top. Maybe a good time to say the bottom of this field just where the tractor is used to be pure red clay, managed to raise SOM by 3% in this field with manure, clover leys and cover crops
Attachments
15th Feb 2023, bloody early to start drilling Laureate spring barley, dug straight off the heap, 200kg/ha which considering tgw for 2022 harvest may have been a bit low... well it was low, no maybe about it, the terrible weather in March set it back hard, should have gone 250kg... hindsight... gone through a lot of drills here, vaderstad rapid was one of the best organically but yield always down on headlands where it packed it too hard. Currently running kverneland ts evo, very simple drill, 12.5cm spacing is good for competition, need it to tiller and create ground cover as quickly as possible
Attachments
- Location
- Owaka, New Zealand
Love the sharing mate
We've been quite fluid on rotation, but firming up to a simpler structure... field being drilled has been ryegrass/clover, sb, so, sb, now back in to white and sweet clover. Looking at sfi and only spring crops, and rotation of sam1 autumn, num3 spring, sb, so and back to sam1, rotated 1/3 1/3 1/3 around the farm. To be dead straight I've been contract farming on organic farms for 20 years, the successful ones acknowledge that break crops are vital, the best performing I've personally been on have 1/3 of the farm down to either legume fallow or grass/legumes. Its been a long bumpy road persuading the old man that our arable rotation of 4-5 years of grain to a years break is too long... out of sheer bloody mindedness I made sure the field his house overlooks followed what he wanted to do, so he could look at it from the bedroom window each morning. It became very dirty with weeds and yield plunged in years 5/6, year 7 we put it into clover ley and have topped it regularly to stop anything but white clover going to seed, going into wo next week behind the plough, soil condition is fantastic
Attachments
This particular field had sb, so, s beans (bloody awful to let in weeds with open canopy) clover undersown into beans, a trial of winter rye dd cross drilled at 300kg/ha into the clover on 1/4 of the field (came brilliantly but clover overtook it despite being grazed bare by tack sheep) other 3/4 we min tilled (max tilled) and put it into sb, min tilled so, ploughed, sb, then clover
John Pawsey is your man for that, he seems to have good success with system chameleon. It would be interesting to trial, not sure how much crop damage we would get with crabbing on side slopes? Really it would possibly only be economical 1 year in 3 here with a year of clover, which needs ploughing for sb establishment, then if we green manure over winter that likely wants ploughing too for SO.. can live with the odd weed. Found weedsurfer good for control but 10% crop loss for wheelings amounts to £60-70 per acre
Had a question today about dock control which I said I'd respond to on the thread. It's something defra have a massive double standard on, @Janet Hughes Defra I'd like you to read this please.
Injurious weeds, docks... broad and curled leaf, creeping thistle, spear thistle and ragwort... the people that want to control them most are undoubtedly farmers, its our livelihood it affects.
Looking back, rather naively we signed up to mid tier when we went organic, the "must tick" box of wild bird mixture is the only way you can gain for the rest of the scheme and you're in it for 5 years or risk paying the lot back.
Well, we spent 5 years harnessed to attempting to grow it. Topping it at the time every one of the injurious weed list is present and ready to set seed is strengst verboten, so defra forced us to let them spread, completely against the weeds act 1959, or we would be penalised heavily. Thistle down spread leeward off every single bit of wild bird mix, affecting the entire arable and grass area of our farm. Docks spread off the plots onto arable land. One dock can carry 60,000 viable seeds in a year, poke them in a swath of straw, bale them, they will rattle out of the baler, the bale, etc and soon be enveloping the farm. I've topped off good grain soiled with docks to prevent contamination off headlands, (you can stop reading now Janet if I'm boring you).
Why on earth is wild bird mix the bit that makes us eco friendly primarily? Fine if you have a sprayer and can spunk herbicides on to the rest of the farm, but that's not deemed eco friendly either.... so, many good bits of mid tier just wrecked before you start.
At the end of the mid tier we didn't renew for obvious reasons and had creeping thistle seriously affecting the odd field, docks certainly not uncommon but not affecting crops to any great extent. We had bought a new 9m CTM weedsurfer in yr5 which did work wonders for control of the thistles (paid for itself on 70 acres we would otherwise have mulched to stop the thistles going to seed) . It didn't come without cost though, wheelings accounted to just shy of 10% crop loss even with super skinny row crops on the tractor. RTK and a redesign from ctm to put the carrying wheels on the very edge of the outer blade would reduce one wheeling taking it to 7% loss, that's a saving on a 2t crop of sb of £19.20 an acre BTW.
With rotation, tillage and no bird mix we have got on top of the thistles pretty quickly, docks though are rather more complex.
Docks carry a huge energy reserve, they don't bleed off like thistles. Topping will prevent them seeding, but won't stop them digging in for the long haul by putting roots down,. Turn them over with the plough with total inversion and the buggers will regrow from the root, mulch them with discs and the fragments can have the energy to regrow into new plants. Two viable things we've found they don't like, competition and ducksfeet on the cultivator, they won't out-compete rye, they don't much like a dense clover sward regularly mulched either... and two passes with the prolander on standard tines beats them up enough to take the energy out, followed by a pass at 4" with ducks foot tines in dry weather brings nearly every one with its roots up to the surface and they've had it.
We have trialled more "hippy" approaches, dad rolled in with a £90 roofing felt blowtorch which we connected up to a 45kg lpg bottle strapped to the rack of the quad, a quick scorch of the leaf turned it black but they regrew and seeded, 10 seconds on leaf and heart they didn't like, leaf came back but didn't seed. 30 seconds onto the heart they were done for... but on a large scale it would be far too dear. I went to the local road salt bin and borrowed a bucket full, put a cupful on each dock on the heart, that killed them along with a ft2 or so of crop, a sprinkle did nothing but kill the crop and the dock grew on.
I've read somewhere of a farmer who had success in training his sheep to eat them by lightly spraying them with salt (the docks, not the sheep!) He managed to get them to target the docks as quite tasty. No amount of sheep here, but perhaps a weed wiper and a large flock could work for some?
Anyway, docks and thistles are a sign of fertile ground, so don't be all disheartened by your farming practice if you have a few kicking about... at least you know your soil is good
Injurious weeds, docks... broad and curled leaf, creeping thistle, spear thistle and ragwort... the people that want to control them most are undoubtedly farmers, its our livelihood it affects.
Looking back, rather naively we signed up to mid tier when we went organic, the "must tick" box of wild bird mixture is the only way you can gain for the rest of the scheme and you're in it for 5 years or risk paying the lot back.
Well, we spent 5 years harnessed to attempting to grow it. Topping it at the time every one of the injurious weed list is present and ready to set seed is strengst verboten, so defra forced us to let them spread, completely against the weeds act 1959, or we would be penalised heavily. Thistle down spread leeward off every single bit of wild bird mix, affecting the entire arable and grass area of our farm. Docks spread off the plots onto arable land. One dock can carry 60,000 viable seeds in a year, poke them in a swath of straw, bale them, they will rattle out of the baler, the bale, etc and soon be enveloping the farm. I've topped off good grain soiled with docks to prevent contamination off headlands, (you can stop reading now Janet if I'm boring you).
Why on earth is wild bird mix the bit that makes us eco friendly primarily? Fine if you have a sprayer and can spunk herbicides on to the rest of the farm, but that's not deemed eco friendly either.... so, many good bits of mid tier just wrecked before you start.
At the end of the mid tier we didn't renew for obvious reasons and had creeping thistle seriously affecting the odd field, docks certainly not uncommon but not affecting crops to any great extent. We had bought a new 9m CTM weedsurfer in yr5 which did work wonders for control of the thistles (paid for itself on 70 acres we would otherwise have mulched to stop the thistles going to seed) . It didn't come without cost though, wheelings accounted to just shy of 10% crop loss even with super skinny row crops on the tractor. RTK and a redesign from ctm to put the carrying wheels on the very edge of the outer blade would reduce one wheeling taking it to 7% loss, that's a saving on a 2t crop of sb of £19.20 an acre BTW.
With rotation, tillage and no bird mix we have got on top of the thistles pretty quickly, docks though are rather more complex.
Docks carry a huge energy reserve, they don't bleed off like thistles. Topping will prevent them seeding, but won't stop them digging in for the long haul by putting roots down,. Turn them over with the plough with total inversion and the buggers will regrow from the root, mulch them with discs and the fragments can have the energy to regrow into new plants. Two viable things we've found they don't like, competition and ducksfeet on the cultivator, they won't out-compete rye, they don't much like a dense clover sward regularly mulched either... and two passes with the prolander on standard tines beats them up enough to take the energy out, followed by a pass at 4" with ducks foot tines in dry weather brings nearly every one with its roots up to the surface and they've had it.
We have trialled more "hippy" approaches, dad rolled in with a £90 roofing felt blowtorch which we connected up to a 45kg lpg bottle strapped to the rack of the quad, a quick scorch of the leaf turned it black but they regrew and seeded, 10 seconds on leaf and heart they didn't like, leaf came back but didn't seed. 30 seconds onto the heart they were done for... but on a large scale it would be far too dear. I went to the local road salt bin and borrowed a bucket full, put a cupful on each dock on the heart, that killed them along with a ft2 or so of crop, a sprinkle did nothing but kill the crop and the dock grew on.
I've read somewhere of a farmer who had success in training his sheep to eat them by lightly spraying them with salt (the docks, not the sheep!) He managed to get them to target the docks as quite tasty. No amount of sheep here, but perhaps a weed wiper and a large flock could work for some?
Anyway, docks and thistles are a sign of fertile ground, so don't be all disheartened by your farming practice if you have a few kicking about... at least you know your soil is good
Last edited:
- Location
- Owaka, New Zealand
FWIW, L P, down here a lot of farmers will use sheep to top their crops and weed out weeds.
Especially cereals as it saves any diseased tissue hanging around, bad news for Bayer but good news for the land and farmers.
Tenner says you're not allowed to, but, flash-grazing works wonders.
Especially cereals as it saves any diseased tissue hanging around, bad news for Bayer but good news for the land and farmers.
Tenner says you're not allowed to, but, flash-grazing works wonders.
Highland Farmer
Member
Great thread, thanks. Out of interest what organic nutrients do you use and do you routinely need any derogation for say SOP? Do you buy in any nitrogen manure?
I'm organic but mainly cattle and sheep. I find without the animal manure and use of polysulphate / gafsa there is serious nutrient deficiency that I can tolerate with grass and rotational oats, but certainly not in barley.
I'm organic but mainly cattle and sheep. I find without the animal manure and use of polysulphate / gafsa there is serious nutrient deficiency that I can tolerate with grass and rotational oats, but certainly not in barley.
Thank you! We rely largely on clover for N, did trial Laws high N this season gone at various rates. It was visibly a better crop behind it through April and May, but results at harvest didn't give a great benefit, maybe because of the abysmal season. Have used liquid digestate to address p&k which contains about 45kgN/ha at 15m3/ha. 150t of organic chicken litter gets composted 10:1 into 1500t of straw from race yard, so really that is our artificial fym. Have dressed mascani with Nuello this year, so will see if that really can make magic. Ground lime when needed. We've not had to get deregations for anything nutrient wise as yet. How do you get on with polysulphate? Was planning on trying some this year.
Highland Farmer
Member
That's good that you can get the chicken manure, we don't have that luxury here
, only what we can get from our own animals. We tried Law's High N last year, I couldn't really discern a difference from the yield so didn't repeat this year as the price is considerable. I tried it on oats, spring barley and half a field of grass at half rate just to see if I could see a visible difference, but like I say, I didn't see anything that would make me think it was that effective.We have tried Glenside marinure and other seaweed based concoctions in the past, as well as making some compost tea, but again I'm not sure I can really see a huge difference that makes me want to repeat the investment.
Lately we've been doing a pea, oat and barley wholecrop oversown with a herbal ley. This has been very effective in upping productivity. The peas seem to deposit a larg amount of slow release nitrogen that kick starts the herbal leys into a different scale of production for us.
We've been using polysulphate for about 5 years now and it's definitely made a difference, again slow release so no instant results but that combined with the herbal leys seem to be working well. I prefer the polysulphate to straight SoP as no derogation required and it has a real mix of nutrients that assist both crop, grass and animal. Only downside is that the price has jumped massively with the latest fert price increases so we dropped usage a bit to reflect that.
Ultimately my objective is to get to a productive equilibrium where I'm on a low input for medium output. I feel that the peas have gone a long way to help that objective. I am thinking of trying peas, oats, barley and then broadcasting some buckwheat on pre-emergence as it's meant to release locked up phosphate.
What sort of yields do you get vs traditional?
What do you do regarding fungicides? Or are ww/wb a no no it organic system?
Very informative thread always wondered about organic and all the ups and downs
What do you do regarding fungicides? Or are ww/wb a no no it organic system?
Very informative thread always wondered about organic and all the ups and downs
We have grown w rye w oats and w barley, nearly put some extaise in this autumn but had some mascani left over from last harvest so cleaned that up. Oats get a bit of rust some years but not yield affecting, barley and rye stay clean. The logic being if the crop isn't being force fed N it won't get stressed and let in disease. Yields on spring barley are good, it likes our climate and land.. 2/3 of what we used to do conventionally, Last year managed 2.3t/a, but 2 is more the mark. Rye is probably 1/2, grows 6' of straw and hasn't got the go left in it to put a decent ear up. Oats have been more variable, both winter and spring between 1/2 and 3/4 of conventional. Hoping after 18 months of clover being mulched we might get near conventional yields on sb next year. 1/3 of the farm is in clover break which obviously wouldn't be conventionally.