The Two Simon's Theory

[Simon Chiles]

As we've got one or two fields of wheat where the pre ems haven't touched the BG so will probably be sprayed off for spring crops, we thought we'd risk the Curse of the 2 Simon's and drill some late Crusoe into a cover crop (previously eat marked for spring) to make the acres up. View attachment 434106Will roll on the frost to see if we can kill remaining cover without chemical. If it doesn't work we've got a week or two to spray it off...

Who is charge of keeping the wheelings tidy on your place?

Is that a satellite image that you have used to check up on your man from your hotel room in Australia?

 

[martian]

Hotel? Australia? No, I'm running the whole operation via a fleet of drones from an small island off the coast of Burma. Got a cat off @clbarclay .

 

[clbarclay]

That's the hare coursing community, bless them.

You should have said if you wanted some piranhas as well as the cat.

 

[Dod0428]

I was just wondering, now that there is a couple growing seasons since the beginning of this thread if there was much success in the liming of the immediate rhizosphere and if anyone is still experiencing the effects of acetic acid on next crop emergence after oats in a cover crop or stubbles

 

[Robert]

Just leave a decent stubble and Bale the remaining straw and grow a crop of mustard in the intervening period to give you food for worms over winter. It has worked fantastically well here this year. Looks as good as some of the first wheat. Wheat is better to a line where there was mustard versus bare stubble

Did you drill or broadcast the mustard? What kind of seed rates? Thanks

 

[Louis Mc]

Did you drill or broadcast the mustard? What kind of seed rates? Thanks

Drilled it, 8-10kg/ha is a good stand

 

[Northdowns Martin]

Does the theroy apply to sprayed off regrowth prior to spring drilling? Had areas of s barley last year that really struggled in area where bg was dying back. Should I drill straight after spraying or leave 6-8 weeks?

 

[Simon Chiles]

Does the theroy apply to sprayed off regrowth prior to spring drilling? Had areas of s barley last year that really struggled in area where bg was dying back. Should I drill straight after spraying or leave 6-8 weeks?

Yes, however bear in mind that you'll only have problems in anaerobic conditions. If you can drill it nicely now then I would. Next week looks dry just monitor the situation after that and be prepared should it turn wet.

 

[britt]

Yes, however bear in mind that you'll only have problems in anaerobic conditions. If you can drill it nicely now then I would. Next week looks dry just monitor the situation after that and be prepared should it turn wet.

By "be prepared" do you mean apply some pelleted lime ?

 

[mikep]

By "be prepared" do you mean apply some pelleted lime ?

Maybe buy some more seed

 

[Simon Chiles]

By "be prepared" do you mean apply some pelleted lime ?

Yes

 

[Simon Chiles]

Maybe buy some more seed

You have that option but I think you'll find the lime is cheaper.

 

[Ysgythan]

This Winter, because of too much rain and time on our hands, @Simon C and I came up with a theory that we think explains all sorts of things. When we talked about it we found that he had one half of the jigsaw and I the other. Since then I have discussed it with other members of this forum and we are now conviced we might have a theory and also more importantly some solutions. I must also stress that this doesn't just apply to direct drilling.
This is it:-
Any residue of decaying graminaceous material ( sprayed off grass, volunteers or chopped straw from wheat, barley and oats etc. ) are, in anaerobic conditions ( normally wet ), producing considerable amounts of Phytotoxins. These mainly consist of acetic acid but some of the others are butyric and proprionic acids as well. These Phytotoxins are damaging seedling roots and making the plants more succeptible to pathogenic attack ( Fusarium and Phoma ) and, depending on the amount of material and lack of oxygen, can even totally wipe out a crop. Even if the crop survives we think it is affecting plant health and growth and the acidic conditioins are favouring weeds such as blackgrass allowing them to become competition for the crop.
We think these phytotoxins are fairly immobile in the soil; acetic acid concentrations are more than halved 15mm away from the decomposing material. We also think this effect lasts for up to 8 weeks ( depending on temp.) starting from when the material comes in contact with the soil.
Decomposing material from anything leguminous, rape and linseed etc. does not have this effect.

We think this explains several things, one of which is declining yields, especially in rape. We also think that it explains why autocasting can be so hit and miss. If the chopped straw lies in a dry inert layer then your rape will probably be OK, but if the straw turns into a wet soggy matt then production of these phytotoxins will destroy your crop. We also think that often slugs, leatherjackets, wireworms etc are getting the blame for some of these crop failures.
It isn't just small seeds and direct drilling, if you had a lot of grass weeds and you spread beans on the surface and ploughed them in you wouldn't have much of a crop either.
We also think that Strip till is benefitting from having a super row cleaner that sweeps aside the straw to help the situation. However, in severe conditions even this isn't enough.
So going back to our schoolboy chemistry we think the solution to neutralising these acids is lime, and so far we seem to have had excellent results.
Of course you could just wait until all the straw had decomposed, then you wouldn't have the problem anyway.
We also think that the reason that this hasn't become so apparent before is due to the effect only happening in wet conditions and therfore sometimes in drier conditions you can get away with it.
We also think that for cover crops to become successful in the UK we need to think carefully about what to grow and how to destroy them for best effect. For example it would be OK to have barley in your cover if you are going to graze it hard with sheep, but you certainly don't want it in if you are going to dessicate it just before drilling.

It will be interesting to see if the press want to publish our theory or whether they ignore it for fear of upsetting too many advertiserers of machinery and chemical supplies.

Non-arable farmer, I come in peace.

We used to top our grass with a mower. Whilst it cleaned up the fields a lot better by cutting the stalks right back, rather than bruising or flailing them a few inches up, it left a row of rotting grass, dock stalks and thistles that were amazingly resilient and up to half the area, especially at the margins or under trees could be covered by this. In the worst bits the top would dry out but underneath it would ferment.

We then bought a topper which effectively minced all this up and spread it out. There was less of it because the topper worked higher but very rarely was any residue seen after a week if that. The combination of producing less, chopping it up and spreading it vastly speeds up the decomposition process.

Is it worth then getting a tedder on there and spreading the residue out to give yourself the best chance?

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Non-arable farmer, I come in peace.

We used to top our grass with a mower. Whilst it cleaned up the fields a lot better by cutting the stalks right back, rather than bruising or flailing them a few inches up, it left a row of rotting grass, dock stalks and thistles that were amazingly resilient and up to half the area, especially at the margins or under trees could be covered by this. In the worst bits the top would dry out but underneath it would ferment.

We then bought a topper which effectively minced all this up and spread it out. There was less of it because the topper worked higher but very rarely was any residue seen after a week if that. The combination of producing less, chopping it up and spreading it vastly speeds up the decomposition process.

Is it worth then getting a tedder on there and spreading the residue out to give yourself the best chance?

I like this.
I've only just found this thread myself, and been skimming through it.
Have noticed the exact same thing here, too, we are having an unusually damp summer and have been struggling getting toppings to rot in. As you have just said where it gets fluffed up it seems to quickly disappear. I've just been using stock to achieve it, by grazing lightly every ten to 15 days. Also seems to coax the worms into a feeding frenzy from what I see.
Think a tedder could well work to lift it up off the surface.

 

[martian]

With apologies to those who live in wet places (we are days away from a hosepipe ban here)(probably), we've taken a punt on risking the wrath of the 2 Simons. Barley drilled into written off oat crop (too many weeds) on 17th march.
So yesterday we drilled some mulika off the heap into unsprayed covers and rolled and hope we get a chance to spray before it's up. Forecast is good, cover should wilt before rotting.

 

[Louis Mc]

With apologies to those who live in wet places (we are days away from a hosepipe ban here)(probably), we've taken a punt on risking the wrath of the 2 Simons. Barley drilled into written off oat crop (too many weeds) on 17th march.
So yesterday we drilled some mulika off the heap into unsprayed covers and rolled and hope we get a chance to spray before it's up. Forecast is good, cover should wilt before rotting. View attachment 494798View attachment 494800View attachment 494802View attachment 494804

Take your fffffffing hose pipe ban and shove it up........

Every days a welly day here.

Oh and obviously I hope your crops establish really well despite the drought

 

[martian]

Take your fffffffing hose pipe ban and shove it up........

Colonic irrigation is off the menu fortunately

 

[martian]

A month after drilling, Mulika looks like this...actually not bad seeing as it's only had about 3mm of rain. If we'd had a wet spring I think the 2 Simons would have done more damage

 

[Feldspar]

We had some quite thick mats of black-grass which were sprayed off at the most a month before drilling. Yes, we did maschio after drilling, but this was very shallow and left all of the mat on the surface. Barley seems to have come through fine with no obvious effects from the mat. Would have been interesting to see how it would have fared if we'd had more rain.

 

[Feldspar]

A month after drilling, Mulika looks like this...actually not bad seeing as it's only had about 3mm of rain. If we'd had a wet spring I think the 2 Simons would have done more damageView attachment 508834View attachment 508838

Has the cover kept in effectively what moisture is there?