FARMERFOCUS
FARMERFOCUS
Lorenz von
Schintling-Horny
Lorenz von Schintling-Horny
grows 550ha (1360 acres)
of cereals, osr and
sugar beet in partnership
with a neighbour in
Lower Saxony. A further
190ha (470 acres) is
farmed in Brandenburg,
north of Berlin in
partnership with his wife
JUST before Easter we had snow; I hope it is the last this year, but I have known 30cm (1ft) to fall even later.
However, generally, snow and frost was gone by early March and cereals have come out of the winter well.
Early wheat shows infection of septoria tritici and mildew, but that is not a worry yet. Herbicide applications of ipu, flufenacet and dff in wheat worked well last autumn and in winter barley a flufenacet/pendimethalin tank-mix was a great success. Mostly we had a 100% success rate against slender foxtail, wild bent grass, speedwell, pansy, and chickweed and also a 90-100 % kill on cleavers. But on 2ha out of 45ha the mix was poor on slender foxtail and I have no real explanation.
Here in Liebenburg we made our first nitrogen applications in early March with 200kg/ha of ammonium sulphate (42kg of/ha of N, 50kg/ha of S) on second wheats and barley. But in Brandenburg we did not get on to oilseed rape until Mar 12. Trials have shown we need the sulphate on second wheat and barley especially to increase yield and grain protein levels.
On first wheat after sugar beet we have only just started applying fertiliser. While my father liked to have 550-600 ears/sq m I find we only need 450-500 ears/sq m to yield 10t/ha (4t/acre). That might be due to different varieties, less certain rain in June or warmer summers nowadays. But whatever the cause I feel less ears means less yield risks, so I avoid nitrogen until wheat is in stem elongation.
Father used to apply a lot of liquid fertiliser in early spring mixed with herbicides such as ipu. Though the sprayer applies the nitrogen very accurately solid spreaders have improved and when liquid became more expensive than solid urea I switched. Since then, trials have shown that 20kg/ha more nitrogen needs to be applied with liquid fertiliser than solid urea to achieve the same level of yield and protein in the wheat. *