Farmer Focus: Winter wheat drilled increasingly early
Andy Barr © MAG/Colin Miller Our winter wheat has all been drilled. Perhaps a week earlier than ideal from an agronomist’s point of view, but rain is due tomorrow, so what can we do?
Twenty-five years ago, I was disappointed if I didn’t have it all planted by the end of September, and now I can’t start before the first week of October at the earliest. How long until we move to November?
Twenty-five years ago, there also wasn’t a call for environmental-feature agronomy. Surely this could be a specialist service going forward?
See also: Farmer Focus: Battling slugs as crops take a pounding
About the author
When I was producing conservation-grade oats, we got some great advice from the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust, but otherwise I have just been learning from my many past mistakes.
We have used both tine and disc direct drills with various scratches, depending on the previous crop and prevailing conditions, but not always quite as planned.
I’m currently having an interesting time with my experimental in-field grass and flower strips.
Pleasingly, we can hoover up more insects, but we are definitely getting more grassweeds and thistles moving into the crop, too, despite spraying.
This isn’t a problem with features at the field edge, perhaps because mowing is much easier.
Unfortunately, I’m now hearing conflicting evidence as to their usefulness, so I’ll consider their future once my current Countryside Stewardship agreement ends.
I’ve also volunteered to count beetles in a slug-trapping trial called Slimers, run by the British On Farm Innovation Network.
It aims to come up with a model for more precise and targeted application of slug pellets, which would be great.
Although my use has come down from its peak, it initially went up sharply when I reduced cultivations.
I’d also obviously like to spend less money. I don’t want to lose our last active slug pellet, and my hands get bloody cold on that quad bike.