Volunteers as a crop?

Andy91

New Member
Has anybody had any experience with leaving winter wheat volunteers as a crop. Quite stripey fields from the combine but looks to be a fair bit out there. This year worth a go? Or a big no no?
 

Fowler VF

Member
Location
Herefordshire
yes. Did it a long while back; wheat price was on the floor, I knew my price of production per tonne was more than the forward price and by not growing I could cut all the costs to zero because all work was done by contractors. Shut the gate on 100 acres. Volunteers came in the spring and we decided not to burn them off. Too thick in places, not enough in others, but its was amazing what came. A lot of thistles and greenery. Rounduped it off and cut 2t/acre. Appalling looking thin sample but it was a freebie! Probably made more money out of that crop than a good many before and since!!
 

DrWazzock

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
I once combined a crop of volunteer winter beans that came up after ploughing down the stubbles. Did better than the previous year though that wasn’t saying a lot.
 
I've decided to keep about 50ac of volunteer beans this year. Sumoed stubbles and then sprayed off with glyphosate expecting to drill winter barley which got quite a bit of black-grass. Now odd bit of black-grass, but not much. Mainly brome which I sprayed for last week. Looks better than some of our normal bean crops!
 

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

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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/
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