Cover Crops 3.0

Extensively grown CC Surley return money?
Turnip and forage rape seed here is £3 a kilo
2kg a acre sown as cheap as possible and a roll then have tack sheep in in the winter :undecided:sheep shitting over your field for a few weeks and the regrowth drying the soil then getting incorporated in the spring:scratchhead:
Agree 100%, just not as sure about growing them and not grazing or using them.
 
Extensively grown CC Surley return money?
Turnip and forage rape seed here is £3 a kilo
2kg a acre sown as cheap as possible and a roll then have tack sheep in in the winter :undecided:sheep shitting over your field for a few weeks and the regrowth drying the soil then getting incorporated in the spring:scratchhead:

Perfect scenario and my view is that cover crops are really only for sheep and not for cattle of any sorts which won't suit all farms.

It's easy to get excited about cover crops with the very early harvest and sowing of them with decent enough growth. Where I see it falling apart (and saw here ourselves) is when cutting SB in early September and by then you are sowing around Sept 20th and get riddled with slugs.

Readily admit it might be overcome by correct choice of species.
 
No animals here so cover crops are purely for social media purposes.

After 10 years of CC
Nutrients seem to cycle a lot quicker, cover crops grow bigger every suitable year
This year is one, last year was disaster
P&K has increased to 3 & 4 and fert has been reduced accordingly
N is usually reduced by about half a bag
Tilth has improved and one run in spring is enough for a seedbed
Cover crops mop up nutrients than may other wise be lost by leaching.
Rain is one of greatest reasons for compaction on bare ground and green cover helps with that impact
Greater consistency in spring barley particularly headlands
Crops have a form of available nutrients and seem to hang on better when it’s dry/wet/cold.
Yields are slowly increasing due to consistency

Cover crops are a long game, you won’t see results in one year
 
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Perfect scenario and my view is that cover crops are really only for sheep and not for cattle of any sorts which won't suit all farms.

It's easy to get excited about cover crops with the very early harvest and sowing of them with decent enough growth. Where I see it falling apart (and saw here ourselves) is when cutting SB in early September and by then you are sowing around Sept 20th and get riddled with slugs.

Readily admit it might be overcome by correct choice of species.
While huge cover crops are nice to look at low thin crops are still doing good for the ground . There were American guys over last year and they were content enough with thin cover crops without huge biomass on top . My late August 2017 sown crops were sparse enough but by Febuary the Phacelia was putting on a good show and had respectable roots . My Cover crop after spring wheat destined for spring barley would be small enough but it is doing its job but not in a spectacular way .
 
Where I was in england for the summer there was no cover cropping going on. All land was in continuous tillage with horses the only livestock around. Nearly all the crops were winter as the land was very difficult and they would struggle to get spring crops in. The general experience was that cover crops only trapped more water and made it more difficult to get spring crops sown in a narrow timeframe. There was a lot more going on with lighter land as you moved out of the area.
 
Our cover crops are tame by other members standards but they’re making steady progress.
Barley has died off nicely.
We have slurry tank to clear out so they’ll get a run of cattle slurry with a trailing shoe next week.
They should prove useful at holding onto the nutrients for the following spring barley crop.

F4A638D7-3FA1-4C7A-AF7D-776C0121FD2B.jpeg
 
Our cover crops are tame by other members standards but they’re making steady progress.
Barley has died off nicely.
We have slurry tank to clear out so they’ll get a run of cattle slurry with a trailing shoe next week.
They should prove useful at holding onto the nutrients for the following spring barley crop.

View attachment 58712
Perhaps Cover Cropping 1.0 be a more suitable location ?
 
Checked Agfood today and have seen my application for the Tillage fodder scheme stamped "Restrictive" . Does anyone know what that means?
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Yes in correspondance section. It is stamped on my application form that I submitted by post.
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The lack of left over N is definitely holding back the growth in our cover crops.

Noticed this strip after the winter wheat trial plots. About 2ft wide it had no wheat in it all year so no crop to remove the applied N. The Phacelia is much greener and bulkier there.
Also less stubble there which would probably lock up some N temporarily while it breaks down.
The wet spring would have washed out a lot of N.

In ways, I’m glad to see a lack of left over N, it means that it wasn’t wasted.

09B32A42-5E54-42C7-A4C0-7D94A4F2DDF7.jpeg
 
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