A Late Spring?

The spring has finally arrived after a fairly dry but chilly start to the year.  Rainfall totals for the farm, from the remote weather station indicated just over 100mm of rain since 1st January.  Soil temperatures, however have been really cold, only getting into the critical range for seed germination of between 7-8 degrees at the end of March.  Seeds will obviously germinate at lower temperatures but the emergence of the crop will be slower, leaving the seedlings exposed to pest (slug and pigeons) attack for a longer period of time.  An old saying that spring barley should be out of the bag and out of the ground in the same week should be remembered.  This is especially true for crops that are direct drilled in non-cultivated soils.  Cultivation warms up the soil by moving the soil, and can help dry out the soil to allow earlier plantings, but there are disadvantages.

By drying out the soil it leaves less moisture available to germinate the seeds especially if the weather turns warm and windy after the seeds have been planted.  It also risks smearing the soil at the lower depths, where the tine or disk is working, which means putting a deeper compaction layer in the soil. It also burns up the organic matter in the soil releasing carbon into the atmosphere.  I remember in spring 2013 we planted spring barley ahead of my Nuffield trip to Canada and three weeks later the seeds hadn't emerged, it was that cold.  It just goes to show that you can't farm by the calendar!

There is also a practical balance to think about as well, we can't justify having enough man and machinery power to drill everything on the perfect day, so we have to start when we can on the suitable fields in order to get the crops planted.  These are two pictures of beans (top) and peas (below), planted using a direct drill (no cultivation) system.  The peas have germinated and the roots have started to emerge within 3 days, which is great news.  The seedbed was moist and warm so crop establishment will be quick and will hopefully outgrow the early attack of marauding pigeons!  The beans were planted 10 days earlier, but germination was slower as the seed bed was cooler.  As the sun shines the soil will continue to warm up and it is important that these crops get away to the very best start to optimise their potential and deliver a good harvest in August.  There's a long way to go and we'll have to wait and see how the season develops.

Spring Drilling Roundup

We started planting the spring crops on the 19th March into fairly good conditions considering the amount of winter rainfall we have had this year.  It's one advantage of having Cotswold Brash soil; which is very thin and has a deep layer of Limestone underneath which is relatively free draining.  The downside is that without summer rainfall yield can be limited.  We started off drilling at the top of the hill into a sprayed of cover crop of Forage Rye.  This crop was planted in September 2013 and its purpose was to cover the soil creating a layer of organic matter to intercept the rain through the winter, reducing soil erosion and run off.  What a year to start cover cropping!  The forage rye was sprayed off with Glyphosate mixed with liquid Nitrogen fertiliser 5 days before drilling and the cross slot drill then went and planted the seeds directly into the the crop residue.  

This variety of spring barley is called Tipple and is being grown as part of our Molson Coors Growers Group tonnage to go to the Shobnal Malting later this summer to be brewed into Carling Lager. This method moves very little soil resulting in far less mineralisation of nitrogen through reduced carbon disturbance.  It is better for our carbon emissions into the atmosphere, the soil, the water and the environment.

After drilling this field the Cross Slot drill moved down the slope to plant Propino Spring Barley which we are growing for seed for Frontier Agriculture which should hopefully be used by the Molson Coors Growers Group farmers next spring.  The drill coped very well with the amount of surface residue that was not grazed by the ewes during the winter.  There has been plenty of slug activity in the heavy land areas of the field after drilling and before emergence so we have had to apply a dose of Sluxx slug pellets to control, them. 

After about 10 days the crops had germinated well and they emerged within 2 weeks.  The picture below shows the emerging crop pushing up through the previous crop residue.  The stalks are what remains of the mustard cover crop after the sheep had eaten the leaves off.