Farmer Focus: Confusing harvest and most germinated blackgrass for years
© Tim Scrivener Well after a short Indian summer, autumn is well and truly with us, depositing several inches of rain in the past week.
Granted the first inch was welcome as seed-beds were beginning to dry out, but now we’ve had enough.
Blackgrass seems to be germinating easily with low dormancy, which is a good thing.
We already had one flush on our worst fields before harvesting.
See also: Tips on tackling brome caused by blackgrass measures
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I don’t think I’ve seen so much germinated blackgrass from the combine seat for years. Quite literally a carpet in places, which is a bonus having destroyed it with the first cultivation.
Harvest results are in and after 30 years of growing crops I’m more confused than ever.
Historically, poor fields outyielded better ones, varietal performance has been inconsistent and quality results are all over the place.
In summary, it is probably not a good year to learn from. This year’s cropping plans have not been heavily influenced by last year’s.
We drilled 30ha of conventional oilseed rape along with nutrition and buckwheat in mid-August into near-perfect conditions.
We wanted to dip our toe back into growing OSR and planted early enough to beat the cabbage stem flea beetle.
However, today I can report we have 30ha of beautiful flowering buckwheat and somewhere in the region of 5ha of decent OSR on a slightly lighter patch of soil.
The balance has all been grazed off by flea beetle. I’m guilty of Einstein’s famous quote, to do the same over and over and expecting different results is insanity.
Finally, to SFI or not to SFI. I’m a great believer you’ve got to be in it to win it, although currently there’s not a huge amount on the table to win.
As the economics of farming get ever tighter, the government is looking like being part of the new farming landscape – whether we like it or not.
Unfortunately, it may well be too little, too late for some, as the government drags its heels.
