Winter Barley or Stubble Turnips?

[Selectamatic]

Looking ahead a long way now...

Little 3 acre field, on its own, well fenced, water supply.

When it dries later on (hopefully!!) I'm going to sow some spring barley in it, but im scratching my head as to what to do with it after that... I have three ideas...

1) Leave it fallow, im not keen on this to be honest.

2) Stubble Turnips Kale and other Brassicas, grazed with bed and breakfast sheep
Would sheep be ok on it? There would be no other grazing field, they would be only in with the turnips. We could give them hay I suppose, but I was always under the impression that they should have some greenery around them too, somewhere to lie on if nothing else...?

3) Winter Barley
It's a fairly heavy field, and flat, while it does not flood to the extent that we seen on the news, the soil holds water very well. Tractor wheelings for example will fill with water and take an age to drain (they probably evaporate before they drain!) Winter barley wont like wet feet, will it? But then again, neither will sheep...?

I have thought about winter wheat, but I would struggle to find a home for that compared to barley...

Suggestions and Ideas anyone?

 

[Al R]

Green crop(rape/turnips etc) DD’ed into the barley stubble.

 

[Brisel]

Plenty of homes for wheat. It has a higher feed value per tonne than barley, hence the current £30/t premium. Probably not an option right now & it needs to follow a break crop, not spring barley.

Fodder crops are ok but need to be sown ASAP after you've harvested the barley & baled the straw off. Consider selling every other swath & keeping the rest, putting the round bales in a line so you can feed some out as you move the electric fence up the field? Sheep won't like having wet feet either & will damage the soil. How wet are we talking about? A lie back area is useful but only needs to be a bit of grass in a corner on higher drier ground. These would do better if sown after winter barley...

...winter barley does not like wet feet. Disease pressure will be higher after spring barley unless you plough and grass weed control options are poor.

 

[neilo]

Stubble turnips, rape, etc are very marginal after Spring Barley in any area that normally has a winter ime. My rough rotation here, subject to a bit of tinkering here & there to fit beet in, is Spring Barley, Winter Barley, stubble turnips. Odd fields get put into fodder beet after the stubble turnips, then back into either Spring Barley or swedes.

Yes, wheat is worth more, and would suit the wet ground better, but on a small scale in a livestock area, feed barley is a lot simpler. Tbh the arable is only here to allow winter fodder crops for the sheep enterprise. Small scale arable really isn’t profitable enough as a stand-alone enterprise imo.

I would happily grow all Spring Barley every year here, if I could find someone willing to enter into an arrangement to take it as wholecrop each year. Stubble turnips/wholecrop SB repeated annually would just suit me fine.

 

[Brisel]

Wholecrop would enable earlier establishment of the turnips. You just need a stock farmer with a silage clamp and a need to buy in forage... I've been warned off wholecrop baling due to rats destroying the bales.

 

[ILovebaling]

No offence but would there really be a big market for someone bringing sheep for a 3 acre field of turnips/kale?

Same with some of the other suggestions, is someone really going to but 1.5 acres of straw so he can keep the rest? There will be 10 bales of spring barley, 15 tops.

If it's 3 acres on its own I'd say leave it as set aside.

 

[DeeGee]

I can’t see a problem finding someone to graze sheep for 3 acres, but check if they need some grass lie back to balance the turnips: in which case you might need to re think that one.

What about leaving it fallow over winter, maybe someone would be glad to put slurry or muck on it over winter, and then back into spring barley?

Spring barley will probably pay as well if not better than winter if the field is likely to be wet over winter. Winter wheat is expensive to grow well and probably not as easy to sell as barley in our area, I wouldn’t really consider it on three acres, too many sprays needed etc.

See what others say before listening to me!

 

[TripleSix]

Grass it down and make hay?

 

[Flat 10]

Oats? Winter ones maybe? Good for stock feed, plenty of straw, Take all break, might stand the wet better than barley? Nothing wrong with continuous spring barley, would be nice if you could get an inter crop of grazing as you went but this sounds a bit tricky. Alternatively broadcast a bit of mustard after harvest as a cover crop before back to spring barley? You'd be bang on trend too............
No need for mustard here, chuck enough out the combine

 

[getting on]

Plenty of homes for wheat. It has a higher feed value per tonne than barley, hence the current £30/t premium. Probably not an option right now & it needs to follow a break crop, not spring barley.

Fodder crops are ok but need to be sown ASAP after you've harvested the barley & baled the straw off. Consider selling every other swath & keeping the rest, putting the round bales in a line so you can feed some out as you move the electric fence up the field? Sheep won't like having wet feet either & will damage the soil. How wet are we talking about? A lie back area is useful but only needs to be a bit of grass in a corner on higher drier ground. These would do better if sown after winter barley...

...winter barley does not like wet feet. Disease pressure will be higher after spring barley unless you plough and grass weed control options are poor.

Hello 'Brisel' don't let this go to your head but i enjoy reading your responses, always relavent. But why can,t i follow spring barley with winter wheat? Like a lot more here in Lincs wheat seed is in the barn. Don't fancy leaving it all fallow. Yes Barney Parker good advisor.

 

[Flat 10]

Hello 'Brisel' don't let this go to your head but i enjoy reading your responses, always relavent. But why can,t i follow spring barley with winter wheat? Like a lot more here in Lincs wheat seed is in the barn. Don't fancy leaving it all fallow. Yes Barney Parker good advisor.

You can if you want.

 

[Brisel]

Hello 'Brisel' don't let this go to your head but i enjoy reading your responses, always relavent. But why can,t i follow spring barley with winter wheat? Like a lot more here in Lincs wheat seed is in the barn. Don't fancy leaving it all fallow. Yes Barney Parker good advisor.

Thank you. As said, of course you can follow a barley with a crop of wheat. The reason I wasn't keen on it is there's a take all disease risk. The OP didn't say what the rotation was but a second or third cereal on wet land could suffer from the pathogen & it's not a cheap crop to grow. If it were light land the risk is even higher. For feed wheat the odd barley volunteer wouldn't matter much but you'd get claims for more than 2% though in N Wales you'd probably sell it to a local livestock farmer who wouldn't mind.

 

[Hesstondriver]

stubble turnips after SB could mean later establishment, and thus a lesser crop.
id be tempted to go with WB this year and turnips the following year as neilo said.

when you drill turnips, skip every 3rd bout and use that as run back / area to feed bales on.

 

[Drillman]

For 3 acre just grass it down and cut for hay or haylage.

 

[Wooly]

Who wants to combine a 3 acre field away from the farm !!

Grass it down and rent it out to a mad horse woman at an extorianate rate.

 

[Boohoo]

Who wants to combine a 3 acre field away from the farm !!

A man who owns a combine with a folding header obviously!

 

[Derrick Hughes]

If it was me i would forget the spring barley and grass it down

 

[neilo]

The op would have made a lot from it if it were grassed down and hay/silage taken this year.

To the posters, mostly from arable areas, that reckon 3ac isn’t worth piddling about with.... you do realise that lots of fields over here are less than 50ac in size? That’s why we all have enough hedges to satisfy our EFA requirements without having to pee about with fallow strips, etc.

 

[Derrick Hughes]

The op would have made a lot from it if it were grassed down and hay/silage taken this year.

To the posters, mostly from arable areas, that reckon 3ac isn’t worth piddling about with.... you do realise that lots of fields over here are less than 50ac in size? That’s why we all have enough hedges to satisfy our EFA requirements without having to pee about with fallow strips, etc.

A lot of arable farmers with 500 acres fields think spring barley is not worth peeing about with . But then if you thing 3 acres is then get peeing

 

[buffalo_soldier]

You only get half the forage for your buck with turnips after spring barley.

I tended to use spring barley as a nurse crop for undersown grass when the need arose.
I would go from grass to winter barley, turnips, spring barley and back to grass.
All winter wheat now as switched to whole crop a few year ago.

Some folk are just spoiled, I have fields that are an acre or less?