To drill OSR or not

Doesn't change the fact that if you keep killing the bad guys, you kill the good guys and eventually kill your system
Agreed but it is not as persistent or nasty as Dursban. Can use it in organic situations so mustn't be too bad. Choice crop or no crop.
Quite a few looking at garlic but these guys seem to have got the combination right and its been successful for us for a good many years either in organic or where people rightly were trying to avoid Dursban for a variety of reasons including yours. Trying to limit damage as much as possible both to the crop and the good guys.
 

Hereward

Member
Location
Peterborough
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!
That's the thinking here, 1/3 first milling wheat, 1/3 second wheat and a 1/3 cover/fertility fallow.

For BPS does the second wheat have to be a 'spring' variety or does 33% fallow satisfy crop diversification rules?

First milling wheats are the best Gross margin crops here, a second 'spring' wheat sown from November onwards would tick the boxes of late drilling, moisture for pre-em and lateness for take-all whilst still being better than spring barley and giving a drilling window of late October to early April.
 
Reducing my acreage of rape , concerned that beans will be overdone so planted this for next years seed
 

Attachments

  • image.jpg
    image.jpg
    699.2 KB · Views: 143

Brisel

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Midlands
That's the thinking here, 1/3 first milling wheat, 1/3 second wheat and a 1/3 cover/fertility fallow.

For BPS does the second wheat have to be a 'spring' variety or does 33% fallow satisfy crop diversification rules?

First milling wheats are the best Gross margin crops here, a second 'spring' wheat sown from November onwards would tick the boxes of late drilling, moisture for pre-em and lateness for take-all whilst still being better than spring barley and giving a drilling window of late October to early April.

A fallow would be another "crop" for diversification. Why the fixation on BPS? It will go in the next few years anyway.

The debate for that elusive profitable break crop continues! Can you afford not to crop the land for a growing season? Can you reduce your fixed costs by 1/3 to make up for the fact that you're concentrating them on a smaller area? A break even or small loss making crop of osr/pulses/oats/linseed looks good when you think about that. A fallow or cover crop generates no direct income unless you can get CS money for it because you're not harvesting anything.

If you could increase your farmed area then you can afford for land to be idle without increasing your fixed costs. Oh, hang on, you're paying rent or rent equivalent on that additional area that has to be funded somehow...
 

Hereward

Member
Location
Peterborough
A fallow would be another "crop" for diversification. Why the fixation on BPS? It will go in the next few years anyway.

The debate for that elusive profitable break crop continues! Can you afford not to crop the land for a growing season? Can you reduce your fixed costs by 1/3 to make up for the fact that you're concentrating them on a smaller area? A break even or small loss making crop of osr/pulses/oats/linseed looks good when you think about that. A fallow or cover crop generates no direct income unless you can get CS money for it because you're not harvesting anything.

If you could increase your farmed area then you can afford for land to be idle without increasing your fixed costs. Oh, hang on, you're paying rent or rent equivalent on that additional area that has to be funded somehow...
Have to average out the return over three years. The first wheat has to be good, very good.

The break crops are usually loss making. And have the ability to compromise the first wheat. So an early September week by the coast sounds better than bringing in a poor crop of Beans.
 

Brisel

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Midlands
Have to average out the return over three years. The first wheat has to be good, very good.

The break crops are usually loss making. And have the ability to compromise the first wheat. So an early September week by the coast sounds better than bringing in a poor crop of Beans.

Let's say your labour & machinery costs are £100/acre. The marginal cost of working, sowing, spraying etc an acre is £30 in fuel, overtime, spares, marginal grain storage costs of £5/t & a very small contribution towards depreciation. That leaves £70/acre as "fixed" to cover salaries/drawings, depreciation, insurance etc.
You farm 300 acres in a 3 course rotation of 2 cereals and 1 break crop.
Your L&M costs are £100 x 300 = 30K.
You decide to fallow 1/3. Your machinery costs drop by 30x100=£3k for less work (let's ignore the cost of managing fallow and establishing cover crops for a minute).
Your fixed costs concentrate to £27k on 200 acres = £135/acre. On a 3.64 t/ac (9t/ha) wheat crop that adds £15/t to your production costs or you have to raise your yield by £35/acre or at £150/t 0.23 t/ac (0.57 t/ha) or make sufficient variable cost savings to fill the gap.

Then pay a rent on every acre regardless of whether it is harvested or not and start to think of what it costs to manage a fallow - topping, glyphosate. £20/acre or £2k extra needed. Cover crop - cultivations, seed, topping, glyphosate. A further £13/ac on seed & £27/ac on fuel, overtime etc
What about the other overheads like accounts, utilities, finance?

Feel free to pull apart my maths here. Discuss.
 
Last edited:
Have to average out the return over three years. The first wheat has to be good, very good.

The break crops are usually loss making. And have the ability to compromise the first wheat. So an early September week by the coast sounds better than bringing in a poor crop of Beans.

Grew linseed for the last 4 years in the first 2 years the return from linseed pee'd all over a four ton crop of wheat , last 2 years have been different but at least it wiped it's face and was not a loss maker
 

Brisel

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Midlands
Grew linseed for the last 4 years in the first 2 years the return from linseed pee'd all over a four ton crop of wheat , last 2 years have been different but at least it wiped it's face and was not a loss maker

What kind of yields and gross margins do you get from linseed? Is the following 1st wheat yield after linseed better than that after osr?
 
Haven't got costings to hand but of the top of my head the first year we grew 2 .7 ton / ha @ £375 / ton ,,,,,second year 2.5 ton / ha @ £450 / ton

Inputs ,,,,, bugger all compared to a crop of wheat. :)

As you know it all depends if you harvest linseed early enough how well the following crop of wheat establishes ,,,,,, my top yielding wheats always / usually follow OSR , but the linseed does leave a lovely stubble for direct drilling into if conditions allow
 

Brisel

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Midlands
Brisel your storage costs look far too low.
On a normal year there would be significant
Drier costs.
Apologies if you've put this down in machinery costs.

What would you put them at? Admittedly £5/t doesn’t cover much drying. A co-op store would be £13 before any drying.

If you could rent out a shed that would otherwise house your osr/beans/whatever you'd be better off - ultimately if you want to change your farm significantly to drop your break crop you'll have to restructure the business to cover the loss of spreading those "fixed" costs over the whole farm. I'll bet most growers would rather accept the loss making break crops than have to find other ways of paying the overheads.
 
Last edited:

Flat 10

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Fen Edge
Let's say your labour & machinery costs are £100/acre. The marginal cost of working, sowing, spraying etc an acre is £30 in fuel, overtime, spares, marginal grain storage costs of £5/t & a very small contribution towards depreciation.
You farm 300 acres in a 3 course rotation of 2 cereals and 1 break crop.
Your L&M costs are £100 x 300 = 30K.
You decide to fallow 1/3. Your machinery costs drop by 30x100=£3k for less work (let's ignore the cost of managing fallow and establishing cover crops for a minute).
Your fixed costs concentrate to £27k on 200 acres = £135/acre. On a 3.64 t/ac (9t/ha) wheat crop that adds £15/t to your production costs or you have to raise your yield by £35/acre or at £150/t 0.23 t/ac (0.57 t/ha) or make sufficient variable cost savings to fill the gap.

Then pay a rent on every acre regardless of whether it is harvested or not and start to think of what it costs to manage a fallow - topping, glyphosate. £20/acre or £2k extra needed. Cover crop - cultivations, seed, topping, glyphosate. A further £13/ac on seed & £27/ac on fuel, overtime etc
What about the other overheads like accounts, utilities, finance?

Feel free to pull apart my maths here. Discuss.
To continue your set up, suppose you grow 100acres of spring beans. GM £120-150/ac? Seems realistic to me. Deduct 100 L and M plus your 30 acre marginal cost and you make -£10 or +£20 acre. Not good but as you say sounds better than a guaranteed loss from fallow.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 77 43.0%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 62 34.6%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 16.8%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.7%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.7%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 4 2.2%

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

  • 1,286
  • 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/
Top