Sunshine & showers…
EASTON LODGE
Sunshine & showers…
A WEEK of sunshine and showers has made seed-beds for winter wheat very nearly ideal. The first 58ha (143 acres) were sown with Class 1 Malacca milling wheat, home-saved seed at an average sowing rate of 121 seeds/sq m, or 63kg/ha.
The seedbeds were prepared with a combination of subsoiler, discs and rolls on last years set-aside and pea land. On the oilseed rape stubble we used discs, spring tine cultivator and rolls.
All the sowing was carried out using the Kuhn power harrow/Accord drill 4m combination unit and unlike last autumn, followed up with the Cambridge rolls. The drilling took place between Sep 4 and Sep 11 and judging by the rainfall since, I would expect emergence very soon.
We still have 9ha (22 acres) of second wheat to drill, which has been dressed with Jockey to control soil-born fusarium and take-all, which should allow us to drill earlier than safe practice would normally suggest for a second wheat. The use of Jockey as a seed dressing will hopefully increase root length and by drilling earlier at lower seed rates will reduce plant populations.
This will only leave 15.4ha (38 acres) to sow after sugar beet harvest in late October/early November. This we have taken the precaution of dressing with Beret Gold and Evict to provide protection against wheat bulbfly.
No crop spraying has been carried out to-date but the oilseed rape has received 50kg N/ha as prilled urea and we are poised ready to apply slug pellets as and when required. Mini slug pellets have been applied to 25.6ha (63 acres) of wheat after oilseed rape at 10kg/ha as a precaution in the almost certain belief that now that the seedbeds are wet, slugs will emerge with the young wheat seedlings and have a dramatic effect on our plant population.
All is well so far, but the problem area I think is going to be the barley seedbeds. We are hoping to sow 37.5ha (93 acres) of Pearl barley this month after wheat on some of the stiffer land. I hesitate to say heavy, for fear of causing amusement among my neighbours who farm proper mens land. But on the south-west corner of Easton Lodge we do have what Rodney Burton from the Soil Survey and Land Research Centre describes as non-calcareous clay loam, which is moderately permeable iron-rich clay over shattered limestone. For the aficionados among you these are soil series Scotton Spilsby.
All four fields had the straw chopped and spread, albeit badly, with the underpowered Clayson 8060 and ageing Rekord chopper on hire this season. The tramlines had been subsoiled – but what to do next? A small area has been ploughed and pressed which might break down into a seedbed if allowed to weather, but will probably need power harrowing and rolling before drilling.
The rest we have been over with a Knight Farm Machinery 4m Triple Press Plus. This consists of a depth control roller with slicing discs to cut through straw and trash. This is followed by two banks of tines with, in our case, A-shares fitted and followed up with a double press. This was on demonstration along with a JCB 2135 Smooth Shift 135hp four-wheel-steer Fastrac, loaned by G & J Peck of Ramsey St Mary, and made a very impressive combination.
All the land has been moved and pressed but the straw is a problem, or will be when we come to drill with our Accord drill with two rows of Suffolk coulters. Even where we have gone with the Triple Press a second time, straw incorporation has been a problem. This is more the fault of the chopper spreader and no doubt if we can afford the time, the straw-soil contact and the weather will assist breakdown.
But time and the prospect of another wet autumn on this stickier soil are not on our side. Should we revert back to the disc harrows in an attempt to incorporate the straw or bite the bullet and plough leaving a huge problem in making a seedbed in wet livery soil? If I knew what the weather was going to do the decision would be easier.
Perhaps we should have attended one of the autumn tillage events in an effort to distinguish and select the ideal piece of one-pass seedbed preparation equipment. But since our biggest tractor is only 120hp, our budget limited and time at a premium, I decided to stay at home and get on with the job and not jeopardise our still very strict biosecurity.
It amazes me how few farms now regard foot-and-mouth disease as a threat, even after the recent scares in Leicestershire where stock on two farms were slaughtered on suspicion, though they had done nothing more harmful than eaten blackberries. Farms have not returned to the early levels of biosecurity we saw at the start of the outbreak.
I am told by suppliers and delivery drivers who meet us at the end of our farm drive that very few farms in our area are now taking any precautions.
As we go into the autumn with the all-too-recent outbreak in Northumberland as a warning, now is not the time to drop our guard.
The thought of the disease dragging on for another six months fills me and all our staff at Easton Lodge with horror. *
Proposed cropping rotation 2001-02
Cropping Area (ha)
Oilseed Rape 31.83
Wheat 82.58
Barley 37.51
Peas 31.73
Sugar Beet 19.14
Set Aside 20.41
Total 223.20