Weed Surfer Hire

[Chips]

Is there anyone who hires weedsurfers out ? I'm based in Shropshire
I don't grow a big acerage so can't justify a new one but our organic Oats are chocker full of Charlock and it seems to get worse every year now . Or does anyone know of a secondhand one for sale ?

 

[ploughman1963]

We tried one of the combcut machines that has loads of little knives at the front. Frankly it was a cosmetic exercise as 2/3 of the plant remains below the canopy and grows to maturity. I made the mistake of tryng to 'blind' weed the charlock in the autumn/winter with an einbock,as in harrow the crop to take out the seedling charlock before it gets rooted. Harrowing works well for wheat I believe, but it doesnt work on oats! I ended up reducing my oat plant population, the charlock remained unaffected and happily filled in the gaps I now had in my oats!
I think winter oats are a great organic crop as they will smother every weed except charlock to the point you would swear it had been sprayed but I have come to the conclusion that the ground already has a mssive seed bank of charlock and I am not going to defeat it. I get a great crop of oats that is unaffected by the charlock and now accept the charlock seed going back on the ground. Our rotation means that the ground is in grass for 5 years out of 7 and in wholecrop for 1 in 7. The wholerop is undersown and gets away from the charlock in the spring and is harvested before the charlock gets to seed so we dont see the charlock again until we are back into winter oats.

 

[Boydvalley]

Batwing topper if the oats aren’t to high. Should be able to cut quite high and wheels to keep level. Frost if we get any should then get into them. Did an autumn reseed to great effect once. Topper easier to hire.

 

[ploughman1963]

Batwing topper if the oats aren’t to high. Should be able to cut quite high and wheels to keep level. Frost if we get any should then get into them. Did an autumn reseed to great effect once. Topper easier to hire.

Problem is the charlock doesnt kick off until the spring - well below the oat canopy until then. Once it is above the oats, the oats are 12" tall - 2/3 of the charlock plant (and flowers) are still below the top of the oats so youve wasted time and diesel to reduce the volume of charlock by 1/3 but still the same number of viable plants. Controlling in a grass reseed is simple as the charlock is quickly above the grass as you say.

 

[Horn&corn]

I’ve got a comb cutter in the yard due to go back to James Alexander if you want to try that. Our wheat crop was too thick for comb to work properly.
there was a tidy 9m surfer in Dorset for £9k as he’s bought a chameleon. Chap round here uses an adapted combine header on front links. Another Guy I’ve heard of did the same with a Honda engine driving it as couldn’t get pto up to it on rear links.
organic farming is a pain!

 

[neilo]

Would grazing with sheep over the winter kill the charlock out, but just thicken the oats, or would the Charlock like the treatment and come back even stronger?

 

[ploughman1963]

Would grazing with sheep over the winter kill the charlock out, but just thicken the oats, or would the Charlock like the treatment and come back even stronger?

I would be tempted to say that you could be right on the charlock but oats dont seem to bounce back like wheat or barley - harrowing ours (as advised) was a disaster!

 

[Boydvalley]

I’ve found in the past lambs take a while to get a taste for charlock and eat every thing else first so might be a bit to hard on the oats
Helped a neighbour with charlock in a grass ley that was swamped by charlock. They did eat it but never put any weight on in the month they were there.