World Wheat Record

[Gong Farmer]

Some nice dirt in that part of the country, rather expensive now though.

Several meters of topsoil!

Right, everyone in the UK call their Bayer rep and say they want 17 tonnes!

 

[Brisel]

Several meters of topsoil!

Right, everyone in the UK call their Bayer rep and say they want 17 tonnes!

Bayer will happily sell you 17 tonnes of pesticides and tonics and other snake oil. How much trace element powder can you balance on a crop leaf without it falling over?

 

[7610 super q]

Is irrigating wheat expensive? Any one know how much it cost to put an inch on an acre?

Depends whether you're pumping from a river, or spending £150k on a reservoir, I guess.
Big 6 cylinder engine must use 3 gal / hour ? @ £2.50 / gal ?
Irrigation equipment has likely trebled in price in the last decade like other farm machinery ?
If everything is bought and paid for, it probably pays.
Starting from scratch with the end product selling for 1970's prices, then no.

 

[SilliamWhale]

I have absolutely zero interest in the highest yielding crop

all I am interested in is consistency in variable / extreme climates & the most profitable crop

I am interested but I'm only interested in it up to a certain amount of artificial N usage. I just would never realistically be interested in applying that much

 

[Cowcorn]

Same here. Home saved seed undressed nor cleaned, 1 x herb, 1 x fung, 150kg N. Nothing else applied and we shut the gate and walked away in late March. Sold 3t/ac of milling wheat. Highest price £247/t.
Interestingly the same year we had a trial where we applied zero input other than seed and that yielded 2t/ac over a weighbridge.

I’m afraid people throwing the kitchen sink at crops year after year are on the road to nowhere. This country is heading down the organic path whether we like it or not. Trade deals will see to it.

That was a great result but consider yourself lucky !!! Either you had a lot less rain than others or you drilled varities that had exceptional resistance to septoria .
A neighbour had 80 acres of wheat after spuds. He was leaning in the same direction as you and was reluctant to spend money on " cans " as he felt the adviser was to ready to recomend expensive products when a " sniff of Opus " should do on his "good land " .The forward selling of 200 ton at 160 a ton in feb might have influenced his thinking but after 3 weeks of solid rain in july the septoria devestated the crop The final result ? A bare ton acre of rubbish c that was hard to keep in the combine. I know because i cut it. One ha to be flexible in a wet climate never shut the gate prematurely . My wheat got 4 fungcides one very expensive flag leaf and 3 cheap and cheerful CTL based mixes and managed 3 ton . If Organic is the future then grain growing will cease over here given our rainfall .

 

[yellow belly]

When land has been long term grass
It is possible to farm it with very little inputs
In U.K. 100 kg n for a number of years
In Australia bush to wheat growing with just triple super in the 1980s I saw where they had farmed for 25 years no n Fert but were then having to us n to get high enough protein in their wheat
You can burn the organic matter away with low or no n but it is unsustainable
You eventually have to add some n by either nitrogen fixing crop muck or out of a bag
This has been happening since the start of farming in the Bronze Age 4000 years ago

 

[warksfarmer]

That was a great result but consider yourself lucky !!! Either you had a lot less rain than others or you drilled varities that had exceptional resistance to septoria .
A neighbour had 80 acres of wheat after spuds. He was leaning in the same direction as you and was reluctant to spend money on " cans " as he felt the adviser was to ready to recomend expensive products when a " sniff of Opus " should do on his "good land " .The forward selling of 200 ton at 160 a ton in feb might have influenced his thinking but after 3 weeks of solid rain in july the septoria devestated the crop The final result ? A bare ton acre of rubbish c that was hard to keep in the combine. I know because i cut it. One ha to be flexible in a wet climate never shut the gate prematurely . My wheat got 4 fungcides one very expensive flag leaf and 3 cheap and cheerful CTL based mixes and managed 3 ton . If Organic is the future then grain growing will cease over here given our rainfall .

1280mm from memory.