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To drill OSR or not
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<blockquote data-quote="Feldspar" data-source="post: 6242378" data-attributes="member: 386"><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>As the season progressed some patches started slowing up due to larvae. It's very interesting that [USER=2522]@T Hectares[/USER] 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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Feldspar, post: 6242378, member: 386"] 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 [USER=2522]@T Hectares[/USER] 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. [/QUOTE]
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