To drill OSR or not

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I’ve pulled rape for the foreseeable future and working a rotation now that isn’t too bad - with less concern about slugs. With the loss of metaldehyde and deter this autumn and propyzamide firmly on the radar I’m keen to adjust now to no rape.

 

[Flintstone]

I’m with the above.

Rape is history, and I’ve seen some of my crops come out of winter this year looking great, that I’ve had to kill in the last fortnight due to the stem FB larvae.

My whole rotation is changing, rather than just saying ‘what do I replace rape with’.

Good luck to the growers in future. Unless you’ve got some magic pill, you’ll get caught out sooner or later

Feeling a bit low about the whole job right now. There’s so much working against us, and very little to look forward to.

When you mix a cauldron of BREXIT, BPS expiry, neonic farcical rule changes, upcoming glyphosate ban, grain price pressures and Natural England delaying payments by 9 months, one wonders why we bother.

I’m at my wits end.

 

[principal skinner]

I’m with the above.

Rape is history, and I’ve seen some of my crops come out of winter this year looking great, that I’ve had to kill in the last fortnight due to the stem FB larvae.

My whole rotation is changing, rather than just saying ‘what do I replace rape with’.

Good luck to the growers in future. Unless you’ve got some magic pill, you’ll get caught out sooner or later

Feeling a bit low about the whole job right now. There’s so much working against us, and very little to look forward to.

You will get over it, was in the same place three weeks ago, now looking forward to not rushing around drilling during harvest, no nights spraying CSFB, easier on cash flow in the autumn, no chasing pigeons all winter, no calls from the agronomist talking about phoma or lls, no slug pellets, no praying for rain in September, no worries about late spring frost, then if your lucky it looks great in early July, you have to combine it at 3am because it’s 4%mc and in return it yields 23cwt @ £300/t. OSR can feck off!

 

[Flintstone]

Thanks @principal skinner

That’s kind of how I try to see it too!

 

[teslacoils]

Drove around today. A lot of good rape now in the area looks bobbins. Lots of unbranched stems. Very sad given the costs so far.

But replacement? Can't see any value to b more spring oats. Spring barley overdone. Linseed delivers even less regularly than osr. Even my winter barley looks crap at £120 a ton. Soya? Perhaps not. Even peas are a nightmare.

Grass is your friend. I don't see a large queue to suckle mr goves stewardship teat - I might not even fill in the claim form for this year.

 

[lloyd]

If these replies are typical of the country then
It looks like UK tonnage of rape is going to be very low this harvest.
If the price spikes high it will be interesting to see if peoples thoughts
are the same come seeding time.

 

[Flintstone]

@lloyd

The decision not to grow is not based on marginality of financial viability! It’s based on the fact that the crop just won’t grow when the larvae do what they do.

If rape was £600 per tonne it still wouldn’t grow!!

So, unless I know CSFB won’t kill it right at the end, and after I’ve invested money in it, I won’t be planting it because it’s quite simply a risk too far in what is the annual gamble of crop production.

 

[B'o'B]

Drove around today. A lot of good rape now in the area looks bobbins. Lots of unbranched stems. Very sad given the costs so far.

But replacement? Can't see any value to b more spring oats. Spring barley overdone. Linseed delivers even less regularly than osr. Even my winter barley looks crap at £120 a ton. Soya? Perhaps not. Even peas are a nightmare.

Grass is your friend. I don't see a large queue to suckle mr goves stewardship teat - I might not even fill in the claim form for this year.

Planning rotations that are financially worthwhile has become very difficult. You can’t have first wheats without a break crop and it’s getting to the point where a cover cropped fallow year or even 2 is beginning to look more and more attractive from a risk/reward/worry point of view!

Are you in/ going into a stewardship scheme?

 

[lloyd]

Flintstone

We've had CSFB in Herefordshire we are not immune
but in general not as devastating as East and South East England.
There is quite a diverse range of crops grown in this County as the
Grade of soil is good so Osr is not wall to wall.
In a County of large amounts of the crop then I guess the problem
Can get out of control and the only way forward is to find another crop.
Wish you a good harvest with your other crops

 

[lloyd]

Drove around today. A lot of good rape now in the area looks bobbins. Lots of unbranched stems. Very sad given the costs so far.

But replacement? Can't see any value to b more spring oats. Spring barley overdone. Linseed delivers even less regularly than osr. Even my winter barley looks crap at £120 a ton. Soya? Perhaps not. Even peas are a nightmare.

Grass is your friend. I don't see a large queue to suckle mr goves stewardship teat - I might not even fill in the claim form for this year.

What's your plan with all this Grass?

 

[snarling bee]

I've probably said this before, but hence my decision to grow more continuous wheats or 2 wheats, some barley, and cover crop fallows, or even beans.
Is a cheaply grown crop of poor yielding OSR better for the business than a cover crop. What I mean is broadcast seed in prev crop,100kg N, Kerb, no fungicide, and harvest what's there?

 

[B'o'B]

Flintstone

We've had CSFB in Herefordshire we are not immune
but in general not as devastating as East and South East England.
There is quite a diverse range of crops grown in this County as the
Grade of soil is good so Osr is not wall to wall.
In a County of large amounts of the crop then I guess the problem
Can get out of control and the only way forward is to find another crop.
Wish you a good harvest with your other crops

The CSFB issue has been building since the loss of neo-nics. I wouldn’t assume that just because your area hasn’t been badly effected yet, that they won’t be a population explosion causing you issues in the future.

 

[Feldspar]

We had 750ac this year which is up from about 450ac last year and our biggest acreage ever. It's been a bruising year. One block had lots of tricky BLWs including the worst cranesbill we've had for a while. The second had bad barley volunteers which I left too long because I wasn't sure we had a crop. And the third had bad flea beetle which we ended up putting an insecticide on.

Then through winter the pigeons have been really bad. Even worse than last year which we thought was bad itself. One farm has probably had bad grazing on about 30% of the area despite putting huge amounts of time into trying to keep them off. Overall I think we have 10% which will have a significant yield knock.

As the season progressed some patches started slowing up due to larvae. It's very interesting that @T Hectares said this: "The chalk banks were hit hardest, is that because the plants are struggling to find locked up P or because the Csfb can find it easier against the pale surface, I think the latter which leads me too..." We only have one piece of land with any chalky areas and it was the lightest areas where the chalk poked through that had the worse flea beetle damage in the autumn and are now struggling with larvae.

We have cut back on fungicides, will get proper HSS this year (rather than quite expensive HSS last year). No pre-em (despite cranesbill this year - Belkar if necessary), but will still need Centurion Max and Astrokerb (which is a big improvement on Kerb and has saved a crop pass). My plan is to go back to something more like 350ac for next year and then if next year is also difficult consider dropping it entirely. In any case I have decided that for farms with small fields and / or lots of nearby houses / big woods that we don't own, the balance is tipped towards it being not worth growing.

I think the key growing technique for us is very early drilling (will think about starting from 26th ish of July if conditions are good) and lots of N to get the plants as big as possible. V early drilling seems to miss the flea beetle surge that always seems to appear here around the August bank holiday when mid-August drilled crops are vulnerable. I'd prefer to take some cabbage root fly risk than the near certainty of CSFB. If drilled early, you can always stitch some in (which we did to good effect last year with the 750a) whereas with later drilled crops there normally isn't time.

Harvest will be interesting this year. Have had yields around the 1.55 t/ac and 1.75 t/ac mark in the last two years. This year I expect to be more like 1.1t to 1.4t/ac.

 

[teslacoils]

What's your plan with all this Grass?

No idea yet. But I'd rather have something growing than no crop, even if it's ryegrass direct drilled into wheat stubble and let out for sheep.

I'm in mid tier. Although given how few people applied I ought to have put 1/3 the farm into legume fallow which, although currently looks ace, they haven't actually paid me fully for yet.

 

[Wheatonrotty]

Planning to put a bit in although a lot less than we would have. I've got some MV Fredericia wheat in the ground which should be a bit earlier to harvest, so the plan is to put some hss in straight after the combine and see what happens. It will probably attract every flea beetle within 50 miles and I'll write it off in September!

 

[B'o'B]

No idea yet. But I'd rather have something growing than no crop, even if it's ryegrass direct drilled into wheat stubble and let out for sheep.

I'm in mid tier. Although given how few people applied I ought to have put 1/3 the farm into legume fallow which, although currently looks ace, they haven't actually paid me fully for yet.

I’m looking hard at the GS4 option and trying to work out if that would work as a fertility building option to replace linseed and possibly rape, trouble is all of the seed mixes seem to be spring sown and I would really like an autumn sown option to keep the area right as they rotate around the farm

 

[lloyd]

The CSFB issue has been building since the loss of neo-nics. I wouldn’t assume that just because your area hasn’t been badly effected yet, that they won’t be a population explosion causing you issues in the future.

Could well be.
My observation is that farmers have already
reduced OSR in this county .

 

[lloyd]

No idea yet. But I'd rather have something growing than no crop, even if it's ryegrass direct drilled into wheat stubble and let out for sheep.

I'm in mid tier. Although given how few people applied I ought to have put 1/3 the farm into legume fallow which, although currently looks ace, they haven't actually paid me fully for yet.

The way the lamb trades been past few months
I can't see sheep keep being highly desired.

They would however do marvels in improving
fertility and cleaning up worn out weed infested arable ground.

 

[Pilatus]

@Flintstone ,while flying have you seen many other farmers ripping up their OSR,this spring. Especially that,that looked well and then went down hill as you said yours did?

 

[T Hectares]

As I understand, the earlier drilled crops may get ahead of the Grazing, but are then more vulnerable to Larvae damage than later drilled crops ??