Oops!

Organic Spring Barley...£250 worth on a road near Launceston.....

Lime and Spring Barley.....or lack of it!

Got a call to go and have a look at some Spring barley that was looking rather sick near Bodmin. The first field had come out of grass and had had no lime before being drilled as it was assumed that the seasand that had been applied in the past(4-5 years previously) would still be active. The second field had been limed the season before at 2 ton/ac with maglime, which had been ploughed over and down for this crop. pH tests revealed figures of 5.1 and 5.5 respectively, not good! The pictures below reveal the stress on the stems (purpling) and leaves, sparse plant populations and evidence of herbicide breakdown. At this stage it's almost too late to save, granular lime at 300kgs/ac might have saved it, however the farmer ploughed it in. Very expensive loss.

Beethoven Maize at Cann Orchard, Bude.

Picture taken 28th May, this was planted on the 25th April during the warm dry weather spell at the end of April. This could have been drilled earlier, however the fear of frost kept the drill out of the field.

The field was dunged with solid FYM, ploughed over and then had 2t/ac of layers muck broadcast over it, before being worked with a powerharrow pre drilling. Drilled at 45,000 seeds/ac, with 50kg/ac DAP down the spout too. The seed was also treated with Poncho as well as the standard Mesurol to counter wireworm and cutworm potential threats.

Picture taken 15th June and the crop is starting to motor!

Picture below taken 26th June and the growth deveopment is rapid, just what is wanted.

Knee high by the 4th of July...? Picture below taken 3rd July!

July 14th and the crop is already overhead!!

Spring Barley issues

NFC Tipple drilled into a ploughed up grass ley, lightish land, one pass power harrow and drill combination, but not consolidated enough to prevent the roots being dried out when the dry spell with cool conditions prevailed in April through to May. Plants dropped leaves and tiller numbers, some plants died. Digging extensively over the fields only presented one leather jacket which had been suspected, but white tips suggested also a nutrient and moisture issue as well. The fields were subsequently all rolled with a flat roller and subsequently recovered, but not before the crop was left much thinner.

The crop was given a foliar feed to stimulate root development once the crop received some rain.

The result of some patience, although the crop is not very thick and is not likely to yield a huge crop, too few heads per square meter.

Small miracles

Same fields of Timber showing signs of recovery, taken 29th April and 15th May.

Winter wheat trials and tribulations 2

1st of April:

Resembling more a desert landscape, rather than a crop of wheat. This is Timber, not looking too healthy, although there are still drill lines just about visible in some places. Do you rip up and redrill another crop, as your spraying agronomist advises, or do you risk it, try a foliar feed, with a bit of growth regulator, hope the sun shines and the plants respond......?

Winter wheat trials and tribulations!

Last years poor conditions lead to a lot of wheat crops being planted in sub-optimal conditions to say the least, some however were drilled in what was considered at the time as not to be too bad a condition.

However, few could guess that this winter would deliver the cold conditions that lead to some considerable frost heave in certain soils and fields. What is interesting to note is that it would appear that crops planted with one-pass power harrow drill combination machines faired worst when planted mid October, especially on the lighter soils around Launceston. The photo's illustrate what resulted after the snows melted in January.

Not a lot of leaf, or plant material to see here! Photo's taken 3rd March 2009.

What is interesting in this photo is that there is a destinct cut off line where the strong northerly winds scoured the side of the hill, everything below the tree line was not badly affected, above, severely. This line went across this field and several others either side of this particular field of 120 acres.