Yorkshire fog

scrubbuster

Member
Location
Easter Ross
I have a reseed that that was direct drilled into stubble last September. It wasn't looking great for a while but it's come away now but it has big areas of YF. What is the best course of action now. I plan to top it, should probably have been done before now. I did wonder about a weed wiper as the sown grasses are well grazed but that may be a silly idea!
TIA
20210620_164106.jpg
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
Is YF a sign of low lime levels?
It tolerates low pH, more a sign of low grazing pressure, which lets it away ahead of anything tasty.

It accumulates aluminium, which gives the impression that "lime sees it off" - really the carbonate gives the H+ and Al³+ something to cling to, so it doesn't taste as fugly (same as creeping bent etc)

The cheapest way to reduce the chances of it overtaking more desirable grasses is to use enough pressure that the stock will deck the area given in a couple of days - as opposed to parking them in the whole field until they moan to get out - because in that situation they'll overgraze most things and still undergraze the YF, which puts it ahead every grazing and creates a compounding situation

Nonselective grazing has pretty much eradicated it from our ranch in the space of a couple of years.
 

som farmer

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
somerset
and yet as hay they eat it, or perhaps they haven't a choice ! Used to be prolific here, haven't really worried about it recently, shall keep my eyes open, to show junior.
Just goes to show what grazing management can do, maggots cleared out the ragwort here as well, all we need now, are nettle, dock and thistle devourers.
 

xmilkr

Member
When l first started work on the farm l now own, all the grassland was chocked with Yorkshire fog, being a young lad with little experience l soon realised which grass was producing the milk, so when the boss told me to put 2 bags of 20 10 10 compound and 1 bag of nitram as it was then per acre, on one of the grazing paddocks l carried this out, l had read in the FW that ici were pushing this nitram as a boost to grass production so unknown to the boss l put 1 bag 20 10 10 and 2 bags of nitram to the acre, the result was amazing but as l had made such a good job he set me to do the other paddocks, l had to tell him he needed more nitram and told him what l had done, l got a clip over the ear but this farm never grew YF again , my advice would be increase your N then more productive grasses will take over.
 

som farmer

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
somerset
When l first started work on the farm l now own, all the grassland was chocked with Yorkshire fog, being a young lad with little experience l soon realised which grass was producing the milk, so when the boss told me to put 2 bags of 20 10 10 compound and 1 bag of nitram as it was then per acre, on one of the grazing paddocks l carried this out, l had read in the FW that ici were pushing this nitram as a boost to grass production so unknown to the boss l put 1 bag 20 10 10 and 2 bags of nitram to the acre, the result was amazing but as l had made such a good job he set me to do the other paddocks, l had to tell him he needed more nitram and told him what l had done, l got a clip over the ear but this farm never grew YF again , my advice would be increase your N then more productive grasses will take over.
l think we all learning you can substantially alter swards by grazing/cutting methods. To be fair, most of us knew that, just got waylaid by seed reps.
 

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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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