Worsening blackgrass/ryegrass problem.

Case290

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Worcestershire
I was surprised how effective a thick cover crops was and dd ...before now we have had to hand Rogue this one
 

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Warnesworth

Member
BASE UK Member
Location
Chipping Norton
Tine drills will move too much soil and worsen the problem.
I am going to have to disagree with you there , as I am sure you are expecting :cool:.
I would argue that 12mm tines every 250mm (driven and set up correctly) will move a similar amount of soil as an angled disc every ~120 mm. We certainly find that knife openers don't germinate any more grass weed that discs do.
 

robs1

Member
And that logic exemplifies why most people are in the sh!t in the first place, wont work on my farm....
Who said we havent tried it ? My old man dd grass late 1970's worked ok sometimes, we have been all dd since 2011, still learning, we've done a few trials of cover crops and natural regeneration, we've tried raking stubbles wever tried dragging the rollers and paddle boards once and twice over stubbles, made no difference to how much bg germinated from.just leaving the stubbles, the weather during seed set seems to determine when it will germinate and of course rain. Cover crops here have been grazed by sheep or sprayed off, early as in End jan or late as in mid march , its needs to be early to allow the ground to dry here.
We have by accident selected April germinating bg here now crops were totally clean in Feb and hardly any in March, plenty about now. To break this cycle we are going to drill last wk sept and spray as late as we can so hopefully the fft will catch the late stuff will it work ? Who knows but if we dont try we wont know,
What we do know for certain is the less disturbance the better, even rolling I think can cause problems, might roll part of a field and see.

Edit in fact Ithinking about it I did part roll a field of WB last year as it rained part way through, will have to get my stepson to use his drone to see if there is any difference
 

farmerm

Member
Location
Shropshire
The reason BG is bad is because everyone got panicky and started drilling earlier last year.
They all thought they'd cracked it and got drilled up before it rained.
It's very evident now that was not a good thing round here.
If I was a direct driller and had waited for a BG flush I would have drilled nothing this autumn or last. In at least 4 years of the past 10 it would not have been possible to direct drill in this valley after 20th September! Hopefully what holds us back from late drilling are also conditions that are helping us hold back blackgrass from getting a foothold. Found 2 BG plants so far though I have plenty of tramlines still to walk.
 

Two Tone

Member
Mixed Farmer
I am going to have to disagree with you there , as I am sure you are expecting :cool:.
I would argue that 12mm tines every 250mm (driven and set up correctly) will move a similar amount of soil as an angled disc every ~120 mm. We certainly find that knife openers don't germinate any more grass weed that discs do.
I know of course that you prefer those starting off with DD to use tines rather than discs. It was because of the high levels of BG seed on this farm that I went for what I consider the be the drill that causes the least soil movement of all, being the GD with 23 degrees angled discs and the following wheel which immediately squashed that angled slit shut again, preserving moisture and keeps good seed to soil contact if it dries out.

I well remember our wonderful chat a couple of years ago with us discussing a possible move towards DD here and my worries about the dangers of running back into a worsening BG situation.

Having gone for the GD, I cannot stress enough my utter surprise and delight in the fact that I have never seen this farm look so BG free as it does this year!
Nor can I believe how well a few heavy land fields that got storm Alex on them within days of the pre-ems, which hammered the seed, have recovered.
I hate late drilling and delaying drilling as an effective reduction in the BG burden. With DD, we don’t need to delay.
The reason being that if we don’t disturb the soil, BG stays asleep. Where we do disturb it with the discs, the wheat outcompetes it.

We ought to have a look together sometime after the Hay/Haylage/Silage season. I think even you will agree that the levels of BG we have ended up with are far less than even you predicted!
I really am absolutely chuffed to bits.
 

ajd132

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Suffolk
I know of course that you prefer those starting off with DD to use tines rather than discs. It was because of the high levels of BG seed on this farm that I went for what I consider the be the drill that causes the least soil movement of all, being the GD with 23 degrees angled discs and the following wheel which immediately squashed that angled slit shut again, preserving moisture and keeps good seed to soil contact if it dries out.

I well remember our wonderful chat a couple of years ago with us discussing a possible move towards DD here and my worries about the dangers of running back into a worsening BG situation.

Having gone for the GD, I cannot stress enough my utter surprise and delight in the fact that I have never seen this farm look so BG free as it does this year!
Nor can I believe how well a few heavy land fields that got storm Alex on them within days of the pre-ems, which hammered the seed, have recovered.
I hate late drilling and delaying drilling as an effective reduction in the BG burden. With DD, we don’t need to delay.
The reason being that if we don’t disturb the soil, BG stays asleep. Where we do disturb it with the discs, the wheat outcompetes it.

We ought to have a look together sometime after the Hay/Haylage/Silage season. I think even you will agree that the levels of BG we have ended up with are far less than even you predicted!
I really am absolutely chuffed to bits.
Really pleased to here this, I remember us having some quite heated discussions a few years ago about dd! I have some late no tilled stuff on heavy land that is looking an absolute picture. Shame about the annoying level of BG in osr but overall looking good. I know if I had cultivated we would be in an absolute mess. (I actually have 10ha of solo esque cultivated area and it is a mess, it then rained and the rest of the block was spun on and it’s not great, soil movement is bad). I will say that that low disturbance is not a silver bullet and can only deal with so much BG.
 

Warnesworth

Member
BASE UK Member
Location
Chipping Norton
I know of course that you prefer those starting off with DD to use tines rather than discs. It was because of the high levels of BG seed on this farm that I went for what I consider the be the drill that causes the least soil movement of all, being the GD with 23 degrees angled discs and the following wheel which immediately squashed that angled slit shut again, preserving moisture and keeps good seed to soil contact if it dries out.

I well remember our wonderful chat a couple of years ago with us discussing a possible move towards DD here and my worries about the dangers of running back into a worsening BG situation.

Having gone for the GD, I cannot stress enough my utter surprise and delight in the fact that I have never seen this farm look so BG free as it does this year!
Nor can I believe how well a few heavy land fields that got storm Alex on them within days of the pre-ems, which hammered the seed, have recovered.
I hate late drilling and delaying drilling as an effective reduction in the BG burden. With DD, we don’t need to delay.
The reason being that if we don’t disturb the soil, BG stays asleep. Where we do disturb it with the discs, the wheat outcompetes it.

We ought to have a look together sometime after the Hay/Haylage/Silage season. I think even you will agree that the levels of BG we have ended up with are far less than even you predicted!
I really am absolutely chuffed to bits.
I’d be very happy to come and see you. Give me a shout. Look forward to it. My point was really that you can have low disturbance tines as well as discs. That was all. 👌
 

4course

Member
Location
north yorks
ive read and occassionally contributed to these threads on ryegrass / blackgrass control but what I would like to know is where and how did the blackgrass come from and how come it gained more than a foot hold on some fields/farms.Ryegrass is much easier to see how having leys and allowing them to seed albeit inadvertently you will get some in your seed bank .
 

alomy75

Member
I’d be very happy to come and see you. Give me a shout. Look forward to it. My point was really that you can have low disturbance tines as well as discs. That was all. 👌
I agree; there’s tines and tines. I bet if you put a GD doing 12k next to a 12mm metcalfe or similar equipped drill doing 8k you would struggle to tell the finished job apart. Yes if you go steadier u would move less with a disc but, unless you’re drilling into a LOT of trash/cover crops...I really struggle to see the benefits of a disc drill over a tine (tin hat on). I do however think that duetts/Dutch/bourghalt tine coulters move too much soil; especially on more bodied stuff. Fine if no bg.
 

Badshot

Member
Location
Kent
Unless you've had one on farm side by side you never will see the benefits of a gd.
They're not meant for fast drilling, they're meant for low disturbance, and at 8kmh there is none.
I've got a dale over the road from me.
It's doing a good job, but there is definitely a lot more disturbance than my gd.
I spent several years saying tines are better than discs.
Until I took the plunge .
Now I say they each have their ideal place.
And a tine is miles better in the wet. A disc in the dry.
A gd copes well in both situations, but can definitely run in conditions you ought not to be there, and it will fail in very wet conditions.
A tine (my KV) excells in the wet and produces amazing crops in conditions you ought not to be out in.
But for BG the gd wins hands down.
 

tr250

Member
Location
Northants
Unless you've had one on farm side by side you never will see the benefits of a gd.
They're not meant for fast drilling, they're meant for low disturbance, and at 8kmh there is none.
I've got a dale over the road from me.
It's doing a good job, but there is definitely a lot more disturbance than my gd.
I spent several years saying tines are better than discs.
Until I took the plunge .
Now I say they each have their ideal place.
And a tine is miles better in the wet. A disc in the dry.
A gd copes well in both situations, but can definitely run in conditions you ought not to be there, and it will fail in very wet conditions.
A tine (my KV) excells in the wet and produces amazing crops in conditions you ought not to be out in.
But for BG the gd wins hands down.
Yes moving from a ts to a gd I can second all of that but in an ideal world I’d like to make my own tine drill for wet weather similar to a ts with wheels on the front where it’s dry but heavier duty frame with metcalf points and a following harrow. The trouble with a lot of the direct drilling tine drills is they are heavy and they have wheels behind the tines which makes them rubbish in the wet
 

ajd132

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Suffolk
ive read and occassionally contributed to these threads on ryegrass / blackgrass control but what I would like to know is where and how did the blackgrass come from and how come it gained more than a foot hold on some fields/farms.Ryegrass is much easier to see how having leys and allowing them to seed albeit inadvertently you will get some in your seed bank .
It’s a a amazingly adaptable arable weed that arable farmers have created themselves. Cultivation and nitrogen junkie that develops resistance quickly. It is all the fault of farmers and the trade who encouraged high input high output farming based around wheat and rape. It really has created massive long term issues.
 

ajd132

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Suffolk
I’d be very happy to come and see you. Give me a shout. Look forward to it. My point was really that you can have low disturbance tines as well as discs. That was all. 👌
Got any thoughts on how rolling affects the BG? If I was to roll following avatar into cover crops would I be making more germinate?
 
It’s a a amazingly adaptable arable weed that arable farmers have created themselves. Cultivation and nitrogen junkie that develops resistance quickly. It is all the fault of farmers and the trade who encouraged high input high output farming based around wheat and rape. It really has created massive long term issues.

I don't think it's new! It's been around a fair while. Most of the land it thrives on was grassland not long ago.
 

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