crop rotations - info needed!!!

[neilw]

Hello all, Im currently doing some research in to crop rotations and keep finding conflicting info. Some websites say you shoud go 2 wheats, then a break crop (I.E OSR) then 2 more Wheats, then break with Beans, or Maize, 2 more wheats, etc, other sites say you should only grow 1 wheat, then barley, then a break crop. Can anyone offer some tried and tested rotations, how ever I know to an extent this will be variable because of weather conditions, market requirements etc...

Also, are the crops I have mentioned above suitable for a 1,400acre farming contracting outfit, medium to heavy soil??

Thanks in advance for any ideas, help or tips!!!!

[archbarch]

depends which book you read and who you talk to, soil type and what fits, there is no rule most farms only grow 1st wheats but i know some farms that grow 4 or 5 wheats before a break as long as the soil is looked after nutrient wise, variety etc no problems. A farm i worked on some years ago had OSR followed by Spring OSR.

A large farm in Beds i did some work on could only grow wheat and OSR on some of the land due to the ground being too heavy to crop anything else even to wet and heavy for beans, due planting and harvesting at the wrong time.

Maize will do perfectly well continuously with some farms growing it 15 yrs without a break.

As for root crops i know of beet following Potatoes and vice versa and potatoes following early potatoes ie, harvested in june and replanted with maincrop

at the end of the day it was suits and those people who say you get slug problems never set traps to monitor populations.

[neilw]

So wheat, osr, Maize, and on some parts Beans. Is linseed viable??

[Jez]

Where I used to work we did wheat, oats because it suffers different diseases, barley then wheat or osr.

We grew some continuous wheat too but not too much.

Generaly speaking your wheat needs to follow your break crop.

[Gav836]

We have a few rotations on the farm that I work on due to the differing soil types, crops we grow and the suckling herd.

1) Sugarbeet, Spring Barley, Winter Barley, Stubble Turnips/Forage Rape, Potatoes, Winter Wheat, Sugarbeet

2) Oilseed Rape, Winter Wheat, Potatoes, Winter Wheat, Winter Barley, Oilseed Rape

3) Sugarbeet, Winter Wheat, Winter Barley, Stubble Turnips/Forage Rape, Potatoes, Winter Wheat, Sugarbeet

In a wet autumn Spring Barley or Spring Wheat would follow Potatoes instead of a winter cereal. Rotation 2 is in its first full year on the farm and was introduced to try and remove some of our weed beet problem from the farm.

[neilw]

So the basic rotation would be over 4 or 5 years then??

[FB]

i remember from my geography days it was best to follow a cereal crop with a root crop as the leaves would then 'revitalise' the soil nutrients?.....seemed to be one year cereal, one year root....and so on............times have changed thouogh since then! :D

[jdc]

My basic rotation is:

OSR  1 year in 5 for disease control, and easy grass weed control

WW1  Fertility after OSR.

WW2  Take-all starts to creep in, never as quite good as 1st wheat

SB      Malting, gets rid of volunteer wheat and brome type grass weeds.

WB    Malting, low nitrogen reserves in soil, good entry for OSR....

Occasionally in here would be beans or potatoes instead of OSR, grass for 2/3 years. It can all change due to weather etc.  A few people grow continuous wheat where take all declines after about 5 years but yield never get back to the level of year one.

HTH

[Gav836]

So the basic rotation would be over 4 or 5 years then??

With the exception of potatoes then yes it would be, we are now switching potatoes to once in seven years though to try and combat a disease called potato cyst nematode which destroys the yield although we've had to hire land off the neighbour to make it work

[neilw]

Im sure I read somewere Linseed (Flax) makes no real difference to the ground, in terms of what it takes or puts back. On that basis, does it matter what it is planted before, or what is being planted after??

Were would maize forage fit in to a rotation??

Its harder than it looks this carpet farming!!!! \

[JMG]

According to a chap from Andersons the consultant people - on most combinable crop farms, break crops are unprofitable, winter wheat is the one for profit and a first one at that.  He was saying that most farms rather than trying to set spring rape etc. following the wet weather last backend, would have been better fallowing to get the best entry for 1st wheat this autumn.  Seemed like even winter OSR, was marginal for profit at best.  So to keep margins up, shed some machinery and fallow some of the acerage each year.  Also direct drill the wheat, after a pass with a straw harrow.  Hire in one tractor for autumn drilling, have a mid-range tractor of your own, a sub-soiler, a sprayer, fertiliser spreader (the latter two as big as poss. to get product on in the least ammount of time) and get someone in to do the combining or share with a neighbour.  Ensure all kit uses precision famrning technologies to magange everything you are doing.  Chop all straw and return to the land to improve soil structure etc.  Put un-productove headlands, field corners and even odd-fields into agri-environemtal schemes and then you might get a decent return on investment.  To help this lock some of your tomnnage into forward contracts, look for added value contracts and look into hedging/options etc. to manage risk.  Could join a co-op and let them market your grain instead, as they will probably do a better job and if you let them dry/store it, you won't have to invest big sums to store grain and can put your buildings to a more profitable use.  Also with them being able to blend batches etc., they should get a better price for you.  With only one crop type to look after each year, you can do the best job by it re. timelinesss etc. and at certain times of the year actually take some holiday and/or do something with your time that pays a better rate per hour than your farming ;-)

[ploughmaster]

Nowadays, the traditional idea of rotation has largely been abandoned, although continuous wheat isn't as common as it was a few years ago.  Many farms now have such a small range of cropping that it isn't possible to achieve rotations of more than 2 or 3 years, and this is particularly problematic for crops such as OSR, potatoes, sugar beet, and peas which ideally require much longer breaks to prevent build up of soil borne pests and diseases (6 to 8 years). 

Traditional rotations have largely died out - the old 'Norfolk Four Course' having been the best known (Roots, Barley, Seeds, Wheat).

[jakescot]

bein all grass.................crop rotation has  largely fallen by the wayside  round here too,wrongly I feel BTW..........looks like tho if we  start doing kale , rape etc for cows n lambs then an arable break rotaion could work.......kale to break up the turf...perhaps a 2nd brassica if its no been turned in ages ,then a wholecrop wheat or barley or two.....possibly a protein bean or  short red clover ley in there also......I`m sure it could be made work for us wet westerners and might even boost the profits too

[neilw]

Thanks for the tips and adviceall!!!! loads to be thinking about there!!! ANY tips gratefully received!!

[neilw]

Aplogies if im being a bit dense, but when you say a straw harrow, do you mean something like a topdown?? or a cheaper, less fancy alternative, say simba heavy discs??

And is Straw chopping when it is spread over the width of the header, rather than in a swathe to be baled??  \

[Murray]

well ben i remember in my geography days i got chucked out my class because the teacher argued with me saying you cant grow OSR up here :D and you can...

we have just started getting into crop rotation this year because alot of our grass parks are getting old and filled with dockin leafs so we need to get them ploughed in and OSR or barley is going on it

[JMG]

A straw harrow is for spreading out the chopped straw evenly across the field.  It has heavy duty harrow points, they are I believe popular elsewhere but not in the UK.  They are for spreading straw about not cultivating the soil (and may also have some slug control benefits).  Jim Bullock a Worcestershire farmer, who is a direct-drill pioneer, swears by them.  Good distribution of straw is important to ensure that there is not too much trash in one place, so that the dill doesn't block and can maintain a constant drilling depth.

Straw chopper on combine; modern ones are good at producing well chopped straw and spreading it over the full width of the pass (i.e. width of header) but even then a pass with a harrow is likely to worthwhile.

Another way as mentioned in the link below is to use a stripper header and drill straight into the standing straw, i.e. no chopping of the straw and no need to harrow.  In Oilseed rape, this apparently has the added benefit of making it diffficult for pigeons to land!

http://www.fwi.co.uk/Articles/2008/06/04/110704/german-no-till-system-provides-pointers-for-uk-growers.html

In terms of the need for crop rotations to keep down the weeds, given my earlier post on returns for break crops (or lack of them), I adovcate fallow with some Green manuring/cover crops.

[Murray]

theres always a benifit in chopping straw because straw is full of potash and this helps your barlet grow through its first stage or is it after i cant remember.... anyways if your growing that amount of acres i imagine that your an arable farmer so to chop the straw and make good use of the ground is probably the best way to go

[neilw]

So no need to invest in a new baler then!!!!!

[Tractorman810]

seem to remember ours ran spring barely, winter wheat ,osr then beet, with small fields/ areas  of spuds, once we dropped out of beet mind i think we did  peas,as i remember the fmc harvestors  being there once or twice and some were also used for feed on the farm

[archbarch]

theres always a benifit in chopping straw because straw is full of potash and this helps your barlet grow through its first stage or is it after i cant remember.... anyways if your growing that amount of acres i imagine that your an arable farmer so to chop the straw and make good use of the ground is probably the best way to go

not just potash but other nutrients.

[neilw]

So Barley with the straw spread, in to OSR, then 2 wheats, a legume (beans, maize) or Linseed, back to Barley. Is this OK for light to medium soil, with regular spreading of lime??

Also, do you need to plough rather than just "till" every few years, or is tillage established enough?? \

[archbarch]

some farmers use the plough in the rotation ie, ahead of 2nd wheat  there is no golden rule and it pays to be flexible taking into account previous herbicides, weather etc.

A manager on a large Velcourt run farm told me growing cereals,osr,beet isnt rocket science and most farmers complicate things for the sake of it.

[Eurodeere]

Your rotation depends on your location and soil type. No good growing sugar beet if there's no beet factory nearby. Are there lots of stock farms in the area? If there are then straw could be worth more or you could do a swap of straw for dung with a neighbour. Balers, dung spreaders, ploughs, power harrows etc etc need implements and tractors and handlers. I think the carpet farm should be full of these items. If you wanted the simplest idea it's to contract out all the main tasks to reduce overheads and spend your time on the agronomy and such like to maximise yields. Far better use of time than sat on a depreciating machine.

[Tractorman810]

Also, do you need to plough rather than just "till" every few years, or is tillage established enough?? \

ours was ploughed each year no matter what was in the fields, was always spread with the pig muck first, mind you in those days direct min till was unheard of, / just starting to be tried in the area