Catch 22

What a difference a fortnight makes. Turning the clock back to less than 2 weeks ago in fact; the soil was hard, dry with anything that had been cultivated over the summer period and not rolled to conserve the moisture. The dreaded Blackgrass was sitting dormant in the dust refusing to germinate and succumb to cheap effective glyphosate, we needed some rain. Then on the 4th October it started to rain. Brilliant we all thought, a few good steady showers to soften the ground and get the weeds to grow but then we seem to have shifted from summer straight into winter with 62.2mm of rain falling in the following 10 days.

On the positive side the Blackgrass flush is well and truly under-way and so, when we do get drilling again we should have a much cleaner seedbed in which to plant and less competition from this invasive weed in the crop. The only question is when are we likely to be able to get drilling again?

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.

First Run For Bean Drill

Yesterday was the first full day using our home made bean drill.  The machine started out as a sublift cultivator and a cannibalised accord air seed hopper and seed metering mechanism.  The shakerator legs are mounted 50cm a part and we're blowing about 20 seeds/m2 down two tubes behind each leg.  We thought two tubes might give us a little more protection in case one of the tubes blocked up.  Although conditions are a little damp the machine is going well, with good seed placement and fairly even depth (15cm).  Hopefully we can cultivate the ground to level it off before too much wet weather arrives.  This will aid herbicide activity, increase combining speed and make cultivations for next wheat easier and faster.

Sowing The Seeds

Sorry all I could not resist this bit of 'Farming to Music'.  It is actually a cover version done by the The Wurzels which I feel is rather fitting considering the agricultural theme!.  I was drilling, or planting, a variety of wheat, called Gallant, which we are growing for the milling wheat market.  This variety is liked by many millers and if all things go to plan could be being milled into flour from next November (2011).  A proportion of this crop has already been sold forward some as far ahead as March 2012!  This demonstrates how long term the farming industry is and how much money and investment is made into our crops that we will not see a return on for at least 18 months.

If you think this is a long term commitment then consider breeding beef animals? If the cow is pregnant for 9 months and then the calf takes a further 24 months to fatten (can be quicker) then you would have to wait nearly 3 years to get any money back and who knows were the price will be that far ahead.  Would you get a better return on a no ball during the 3rd over?

Planting Time Again

With the very dry September drilling (planting) has been a stop start affair but with the wider drill, now 6m, we have been able to cover the ground in record breaking time. Gordon has taken up the drilling mantle from his brother Andrew and has been doing a great job. Working well into the night with the Auto trac guidance system keeping him on the straight and narrow. With only 12mm of rain in September we have had some very dry seedbeds to plant into and germination has been varied depending on the depth on seed into available moisture or not. Winter barley planted on Bredon Hill has shot through the ground, where moisture levels were higher but wheat sown into heavy land has yet to emerge. These heavy fields dig get 12mm of rain last week and so they should soon be emerging. I increased the seed rate looking at an emerge plant population as opposed to a seeding rate. Emergence date was the 20th October when we planted in the last week of September so we'll see how close that is. the clip shows Graham rolling with our 6m Simba rolls and Gordon Drilling with the 7830 and the sprinter 6. Derek is just over the wall rolling with the cousins 12m set of rolls, new this year.

Autotrac on 6930

This is the John Deere autotrac system working on our 6930 drilling spring barley last week. The tractor is GPS guided pulling the drill at 4m intervals across the field (we hope) The system was added to the tractor last summer to help reduce the costs of further chemical applications by not overlapping the passes and thus the fertiliser or pesticides subsequently applied. Once set up the system is fairly accurate. This should then make sure that the tramlines for the sprayer are exactly 36meters apart. A small inaccuracy of say 10cm, over 9 passes (9x4=36) equates to the tramlines being 90 out in either direction, which is quite a lot.