Two of our Farmer Focus writers are becoming concerned that the Indian summer is less than welcome as far as their oilseed rape crops are concerned.

Ironically, after the sodden summer, they need decent rain to get their crops away. One is even considering irrigating - if he can borrow his neighbour's equipment.

Damage-free potato lifting becomes increasingly difficult under such conditions, but hop-picking is much more bearable when it is dry. My memories of man-handling rain-soaked aphid-infested bines while sweating in all-weather gear will never fade.

The dry weather is also helping cereal sowing proceed apace. So as always it cuts both ways - what's good for some is less so for others.

Whenever we write about drought for FW you can almost guarantee that the heavens will have opened by the time our articles appear in print! But for now it looks as though only the north will be getting any significant showers in the next few days.

So where are you are what's your immediate weather wish? 

Rain for me please Andrew ! It seems incredible after the sodden summer but we are now back to a drought here. The sugarbeet is flat on the floor and shedding leaves rapidly. The rape germinated well as we ploughed up the moisture and drilled the same day. The neighbours who min-tilled didn't find the moisture so germination is poor except for the roller wheelings. My rape has got off to a good start but is clearly drought stressed and needs a good soak to keep it ahead of nibbling birds and pests. The plus side of this dry weather is that the fans are still blowing, drying the damp grain from a month ago. We've only had 4mm rain in the last 4 weeks.

David Richardson is in the same boat - he's blogged on it today. You could compare notes by adding a comment.

http://www.fwi.co.uk/blogs/david-richardson-rural-digest/2007/09/chasing-birds-to-help-rape.html

 

Mark - Which county do you farm in, please?

 

 Pardon the pun but it never rains, it pours!

From floods to dry in such a short space of time, isnt mother nature a difficult creature at times LOL

I was talking to a contractor out Herefordshire way yesterday and he said there were plenty of people who'd either stopped lifting spuds or were irrigating first because it was so dry - it's almost unbelievable how quickly it can go from one extreme to the other! There are also some pretty ropey seedbeds about - esp where it was ploughed wet, then baked dry. OK for making pots, not so good for drilling rape, wheat, etc!

Paul

Yes, I guess thats what happens when you get floods & wet conditions in summer; things dry out too quickly & in heavier soil types, this is a huge issue. 

Hiya,

Nobody replied to my post about drilling hybrid rape. Anyhow, I cracked on and got 180ac of Excalibur drilled by 20th August. It was too wet really to start by by the end of the second day was almost too dry to keep going. Blasted weather. Still, emergence has been ok, with plants with 4+ true leaves and about 3 to 4 inches of root. Some poor patches have had another 2kg/ha broadcast. I drilled 48 seeds /m and reckon about 80% must be up by now. OK sicne we have had no rain since.

Dont want a downpour as I reckon there are a lot of slugs deep down ready to come for a feast. Ground is now too hard to drill wheat. Also my wife has just had a baby so maybe quarter of an inch Thursday and another quarter on Sunday would be good as I could have a day off to catch up on the housework!

Congratulations on the new arrival TeslaCoils! Was the rape drilled into a ploughed/ cultivated seed-bed or min-tilled?

Fingers crossed for a bit of rain - esp in the southest. I was at a ploughing match near home in Essex on Sunday and some of the guys with vintage tractors were really struggling when they hit the tramlines!

Paul

 

We Till-Seeded our rape with a shakerator/variocaster and even under really dry conditions it seems to have picked up sufficient moisture to germinate and grow. Although the surface is bone dry it is still mud at 250 - 300 mms so moisture is finding its way up the shakerator leg slots.. We have not seen many slugs but we did place fertiliser under the rape seed so this might have put them off.....

We would be glad to get this ,We farm very heavy black clay and grow up to 900 acres of rape and we planted in beautiful conditions in may ,We got 19 inches of rain in end of may/june 4 inches in july ,2 inches in august/september.Our crops are off but 000's of acres of neighbours beans and sunflowers are under water and probably lost.Early combined stuff was Oats 2 ton/acre ,beans 1.25 ton /acre and wheat 2.75 ton/acre which is amazing considering the weather but rape is always the one that suffers water most and we only got about 1/4 ton an acre , the forecast says rain for two weeks yet ,There is already snow 100 miles away ?This is weird ..My family in UK say they are still recovering from the wet ?

BP, just amused by your snow being 100 miles away. We had to bring the stock in at the weekend because the farm was under snow! Just where is this global warming we are promised! Stuart

Sorry for delay in replying - was drilled after a non-inversion regime. One pass with simba mono. One pass at 30 degrees with subsoiler to about 18 inches. Rolled. Drilled then rolled and slug pelleted. In 4 days managed to get 200 acres done just in time for the wheat to dry again. Previous crop was wheat and the straw was chopped & spread. I only plough the light land and this certinaly isnt that!

 I have some nice pics but havent got a 'blog' yet to put them on. Got a population of maybe 35 plants per metre and I expect to have 25 left by February. Many are enormous - over 2 foot accross - and have smothered everything else out so probably wont have to use any kerb. Even now we are getting new plants germinating. Varitey is Excalibur, as we tried 30 acres last year and it was great.

 

What has been behind the trend towards this sort of method of establishing OSR? Cost pressures, moisture retention or some other issue? 

I think a lot is down to situation. For me, ploughing after wheat for rape is a non-start. Seedbed would be too dry. No chance for a weed kill with Roundup. Also I can cover a ot of ground quite quickly. Also avoid bringing up any old weeds - some of th land I am on has not been ploughed for 8 or so years, and with a bit of roguing I am well on top of grass weeds. Soil now in great condition and loads of earthworms about.

Disadvantages are quite a lot of trash as I dont bale straw. This can lead to slug damage, but I reckon a healthy and rapidly growing hybrid plant established early will grow away from most damage with one application of pellets. Kit is reasonbly cheap. I reckon for the price I was quoted for a new plough you can get an old Simba mono like mine, and a good subsoiler, providing you have the horsepower to pull it.

Oh, also relativly inexperienced farmers like me can make a right balls up job with a plough.

I'll let you all know this time next year how our non-plough sugarbeet goes!

...Stuart..For canada 100 miles away just as well be next door ,I checked last years diary we were combining sunflowers now in 8 inches of  snow at minus 12 and land was too hard to disc after combining ?....It's minus 4 this morning .Global warming...Would be nice ..Ha.Ha ?

 

Hey tas ....Winter rape is out of the question here because of hard winters but we grow all (Roundup ready) or (GM) rape now and have always used a air/disc drill with autumn and spring cultivations ahead of drill ,But recent years have just chisel ploughed stubble in the autumn and super harrow in spring and apply seed with an air spreader and super harrow again ,And yeilds have not changed .On wetter years it seems better not disturbing any lumps and working in fine top tilth ,Any crop residue is not desirable and hinders germination and acts as an insulator against sunlight so a good black stubble burn is always best ,I think we should make the most of being able to still burn straw because for the first time ever we had burning bans this summer and the total ban is sure to follow and machinery costs are going to rise (ploughing or baling) .