Break crops and rotations

[neilw]

Is there any reason why you couldn't/wouldn't have a 2 season "break" crop??

I.E Wheat, OSR, Beans, Wheat??

Would there be any disease/pest reason this could not be done, provided drilling/harvest times coincided??

[AndyB]

In most arable situations the first point would be 'whats the point'?  The main idea of a break is to do just that and then get back into a wheat etc.  Getting back to your question, break crops do need a break too.  For example OSR followed quickly with another builds up the risk of Sclerotinia, Peas or Beans grown too closely increases the risk of Fusarium Foot Rot.  There is a myriad of other reasons but that would bore the preverbial off you!

The one obvious situation where the above is not true is on light land able to grow higher value crops.  What would be a break type crop on heavy land is the 'wheat' on light land.  Often this type of land will be double cropped so that you in effect have two break crops in one year.  This could well be followed by another year of intensive high value crops before a 'break crop' of Wheat or, more likely, Barley.

[neilw]

Cheers mate,

so wheat, barley, osr,wheat, beans would do the ground more good then in terms of minimising damage to ground and pests??

[robl12]

Up here tatties seem to be the break crop fields rented out to local grower then back in wheat/ barley next year, most farmers will not put neeps in same field each year due to root problems so used them as a break crop for cereal crops.

[AndyB]

Cheers mate,

so wheat, barley, osr,wheat, beans would do the ground more good then in terms of minimising damage to ground and pests??

The pest issue is a questionable one because they are fairly static and 'crop up' whenever a host is grown.  Ground damage is down to how you farm it.  One of the main reasons for a rotaion apart from different income streams and workload, is soil born pathogens.....in my humble of course!

N.B. - other opinions on this subject are available 

[jdc]

Andy has pretty much summed it up - personally I try to keep OSR or beans to 1 year in 5 for the reasons mentioned. The main idea of the break crop is to move from cereals for a year (perhaps control grass weeds easily) and get back to a high yielding 'first' wheat. FWIW, my basic rotation is WW,WW,SB,WB,(OSR/beans/potatoes) It varies on a field basis as grass (1 to 3 years) and in the past, setaside had to be accommodated.

I don't think one crop is more beneficial than others in terms of soil improvement (apart from the amount of residue left to incorporate) but in a wet year potato harvest tends to do most damage to soils.

[ploughmaster]

As said before, the principal reason is to give the land a break from cereals.  Continuous growing of one type of crop inevitably leads to a build up of particular weeds and soil borne pests and diseases.  Continuous cereals are grown on some farms, but it is difficult to keep control of grass weeds in particular, which, being cereals themselves, are more difficult to kill in wheat.

Crops such as potatoes and peas/beans need keeping several years apart because of a build up of soil borne diseases and pests (particularly nematodes in the case of potatoes and sugar beet, a bad infestation of which can mean having to give up growing those crops on the affected field altogether for 15 to 20 years).

There is no particular reason for not using two break crops in a row, it is more a case that wheat being the principal crop on most farms, it is mainly to serve as a break from that. 

I used to work on a farm that belonged to a seed breeding company.  The cereal variety maintenance and purification work required a two year break from cereals beforehand (to try to cut out the possibility of volunteers in the seed crop - we are talking of seed in the generations prior to 'pre-basic' here).  We achieved this by growing sugar beet followed by spring rape, and followed the purification crop with commercial wheat.  The company also rented land from a local farmer who grew potatoes followed by linseed to give us the required two year break.

[masseyjack590]

we had one field that had been continuos wheat for 23 years or something like that and the last 2 years we have had some serious black grass problems in there so we put it in rape this year which is growing well  

[archbarch]

one thing to consider when choosing crops is chemical residues, herbicides used on OSR may affect a following crop.

Also nutrients high levels of N in the soil after OSR may have an affect on a legume such as beans.

Some farmers also see a break crop as a chance to reduce inputs.

The worst possible break crop in my opinion has to be over wintered carrotts, only following them with pigs makes sense.