Grassland and Muck 2011

This is the first time I have been on the stand at this event and what an event it was, those of you who missed it really did miss a very good show, even if the weather on the first day was fickle.

Nickerson has been doing this show for a long time and as usual it didn't disappoint as Simon Broddle had spent a lot of time and energy making sure it had plenty for people to look at and discuss. No point in showing things in photo's if you can root around and actually see the practical benefits 'hands on' so to speak.

The one display that got most people talking and thinking was the 'Broadcast vs Drilled' circle. The mix was Blue Circle, a 10 year ley with a good spread of early, intermediates, and late perrenial ryegrasses and a mix of small, medium and large leafed white clovers. The plot was broadcast and drilled (half : half) at the standard 14kgs/ac rate, the drilled piece being drilled with an amenity drill on 2" row spacings. A conventional cereal type drill would have much wider rows and would have accentuated the problems even further.

Visually, the broadcast part looked shorter and there were far fewer heading plants, whilst the drilled part looked more impressive with taller heading varieties. However when you got up close and looked into both swards, the drilled part was much thinner, there was more weed species visible which were growing in the gaps between the drilled rows, the species of grass in these rows were virtually all tetraploid and hybrid species of ryegrass, the clovers were mostly long petiole large leafed, with little of the smaller white clovers surviving. Basically, the drilled lines had squeezed out all the diploid types, along with the medium and small clovers, completely altering the nature of the sward from a longterm ley to a medium term one more suited to cutting than grazing with sheep and cattle. The same thing happens when you plant grass seeds too deep! The broadcast part on the otherhand was thick, like a carpet, had all the species in the mix present and had produced 400kg/ha DryMatter (DM) more than the drilled part. Over a season this would equate to nearly a tonne of DM more for the broadcast part than the drilled portion. This difference is worth the cost of the seed, in the first year alone! Makes you think.....

Click on the pictures to see it in full size, they're not the clearest one I know, but it shows what I have been talking about above.

The upshot of this stand display was one farmer cancelling his newly ordered grass drill which he confessed to buying earlier in the day as 'all the farmers and contractors around us are using these drills now and we thought they looked like there were doing a good job'. Having looked at this demonstration agast at the differences and losses, he cancelled the drill order......

The broadcast piece on the left, drilled to the right of the posts.

The show although suffering with a lack of grass through the drought, was very busy for us, the general consensus from people being it was well worth the effort to get to it. It was amusing to hear that even though there wasn't a lot of grass, they still managed to block the Krone BigX forager, the clip of which can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bb2FSgt1zOA&feature=feedu

Yellow Rust!

Over the last 10 days I have come across a worryingly uncommon (for the very southwest) level of yellow rust in wheats and triticale, from way down by St Austell and Truro in Cornwall, to the Tamar Valley around Launceston, around Okehampton and now up around Holsworthy and Bradworthy in North Devon. It is also present in four varieties as of last week at the official Nickerson wheat trial site at Silverton, near Exeter. This last site, being closest to the midlands was not entirely surprising given the climate and locality.

Last week, four varieties were displaying symptoms. Another variety in a separate trial was also showing symptoms. Not entirely surprising given their rust ratings.

What I wasn't quite expecting to see was the level of infestation in my trial at Tregony way down in Cornwall. More worryingly was the level of disease in fields in the locality, some fields being yellow across the whole field. I have taken some samples to be analysed to see which strains are involved.

Leaf 2 of plants near Okehampton, disease just getting going.

More advanced infection near Tregony.

Another shot near Tregony.

The difference between a resust susceptable variety and a resistant one.

Classic focii of an outbreak of Yellow Rust. Near Launceston, Cornwall.

Major damage, this is Winter Triticale near Holsworthy. It only takes a short while to go from initial outbreak to this, that is why controlling the disease is so vital! What is more disturbing is the fact that most triticale varieties are being grown with supposedly good resistance to yellow rust, especially on organic farms. So to see this in a conventional farm is not good.

Maize under plastic 2011 trial.

A customer of mine  in Cornwall has finally decided to try out this maize-under-plastic method after being nagged and cajoled by his local contractor who has one of these special maize drills. This trial is for grain maize specifically, this system for forage maize is completely different and has some value in very unfavourable areas. Here are some photo's showing the results so far.

Drilled at the same time as the main crop which is Lorado, the earliest high yielding grain maize variety currently available. Please note the highlighted bit, I am not stating that it is the highest yielding variety, just that it's the earliest of the high yielders. This is an often overlooked factor when choosing grain maize varieties, outright yield is often the main selling point. I argue that it's no point growing this grain crop if you are expecting to harvest it in cold wet dark December, when the grain is more often than not contaminated by fusarium and other unpalatable moulds and diseases which spoil quality. Having a variety that will stand all the way through winter is hardly any advantage if the grain is rotten by then! Lorado is good in that it dries down very rapidly and is earliest to finish, when it's ready, don't hang around, go get it. If you wait, it will lodge just below the cob as previous post photo's show although grain loss is actually very small.

Lorado conventionally drilled next to Lorado under plastic. What is really interesting is that the Lorado is emerging better than the maize-under-plastic recommended varieties, as can be seen below.

Lorado emerging in these rows here very evenly and a lot more consistently.

Standard varieties in the first 10 lines, with Lorado on the outside 2 rows. Standard varieties really struggling to punch through the plastic compared to the Lorado.

One of the issues with this system of establishing maize in a dry year can be seen below. The rain has soaked in beautifully into the conventionally planted, but is bone dry under the plastic. The plants which haven't 'punched' through are under tremendous drought stress, are quite brittle in the stems and showing signs of damage. Bizarely the weeds under the plastic are flourishing as they have enough moisture to survive, even though this area has been sprayed with a pre-emergence herbicide. This can be seen in the photo's below.

Struggling to 'punch through' as it's claimed to.



Because the system of laying the plastic, spraying and drilling the seed is so task heavy and complicated, there is no way of banding a starter fertiliser into the seedbed. As a result, the plants have to scavenge for nutrients, something that maize does not do well. This I am sure is holding back growth and therefore inhibiting yield potential. The plants in the picture above this one if you look carefully are actually quite pale, compared to the plants planted conventionally, even though they are larger.

My main concern though looking at the picture above is weed control. Look at how big these weeds above are under the plastic, there is just no way of controlling these, you cannot over spray as the chemical will just land on the plastic sheet and maize just hates any weed competition. It's going to take a really impressive recovery from here to get me interested in spending an additional £160/ac over the conventionally grown grain maize.

Updates will follow, watch this space........