I’m fed up with talking about the weather, but I can console myself with the fact we have grabbed every opportunity so far and progress is not too bad.What is the best practice?
AN informal discussion group, based around the Grainfarmers/UAP Project Energise investigation, is helping an agronomist get to grips with his rape crop.
According to Paul Drinkwater, agronomist across 3,500 hectares in Cambridgeshire for Lord De Ramsey’s Abbots Ripton Farming Company, growers and agronomists are still shooting in the dark when it comes to best practice rape management
While yields average around the 3.5-4.0t/ha, in years like 2007, they vary markedly around this mean. “There’s no year-on-year consistency,” says Mr Drinkwater.
“Where in May you might have had a crop which appeared to have an ideal plant count and canopy structure it isn’t until you get into the crop with the combine that you know exactly where you stand.
“We’d like to get to a position – as we have been for some time with our wheats – when we have a good idea what we are going to get in the barn and can manage our marketing and budget more effectively for the crop across the whole enterprise.”
As a keen participant in the Project Energise discussion group he has adopted a range of new agronomic measures based on the exercise’s trials which will help reduce variability. They include the use of early season crop nutrition, the reintroduction of hybrids, and adoption of a 4-6 spray fungicide programme.
In Mr Drinkwater’s view, the first 2-3 weeks of a rape crop’s life are critical. While he admits that trials consistently confirm that ploughing produces the best yields, in his view this is an impossible practicality, given the turn round needed.
As an alternative, by gearing machinery to fit a controlled traffic approach where the same tramlines feature in the same place in every crop, Mr Drinkwater is trying to grow rape in essentially a bed system, where the soil remains well structured to depth without the need for inversion tillage.
The machinery reduces unnecessary running on the ground, and where unavoidable immediately loosens the soils behind any wheelings using tines on the back of any kit.
With one combine wheel running down the existing tramlines, there is only one other wheel that runs over the ground from drilling through to the preparation of the next crop.
Next year, the intention is to use GPS tracking systems linked to a fixed base station to re-establish tramlines in exactly the same place in the following crop.
Recently, the estate has seen acceptable results from Autocasting though now, the farm managers tend to use min-till, if need be utilising disc cultivation to prepare a seedbed prior to drilling in the last two weeks of August or first week of September.
“This works well on our chalky boulder clays which are good at restructuring themselves,” says Mr Drinkwater.
Rape is increasingly established using the Claydon drill, which establishes the seed in cultivated bands, leaving the soil in between untouched. Vaderstad drills also feature and by blocking every other coulter with this set of kit, rapes are planted in 24-inch rows.
Mr Drinkwater aims for an optimum of 60 plants sq.m established in the spring, and where the drill allows, uses seed rates are as low as 2.5kg/ha, particularly for hybrids. “While 40 plants per sq.m is acceptable, 80 plants would be far too much,” he says. “It remains to be seen whether the wider rows are the right approach.”
The key to good establishment is moisture conservation and waiting for the right conditions. September’s dry spell proved how important barley is to rape establishment.
“Those crops drilled after winter barley are looking fine, whereas some seedbeds prepared after wheat dried out like bullets and have 20% less established plants.
While the estate hasn’t grown hybrids for some time, they make a re-appearance this year in the guise of Excalibur. However, the bulk of the crop remains in Castille, which continues to perform well and has shaken off the challenge of Lioness.
Based on a strong performance last year, 60ha of the HOLL rape Splendor is also being grown and looks good after being one of the first drilled.
Grainfarmers arable technical manager, Lee Bennett – one of the coordinators of the regional Project Energise Discussion Group – says that while Splendor is slow to move to green bud in the spring, it does appear to have autumn vigour on a par with Excalibur.
“This early vigour, creating a good ground cover, combined with the min-till approach adopted by Mr Drinkwater, helps reduce the problems with volunteers contaminating the specialist oil crop,” he says.
Min-tilling also reduces the number of black-grass plants emerging from depth, which the limited zone of residual protection provided by Kerb (propyzamide) could have difficulty with.
Most of the rape crop is treated with a Chinook/Rovral (beta-cyfluthrin+imidacloprid/iprodione) mix and this year, based on good results in Project Energise trials where it increased yields by over 1t/ha compared to controls, Hy-Pro Duet (prochloraz+thiram) also features.
Energise trials back his experience that two autumn sprays are needed to keep phoma at bay. “It is important to minimise very early infections in early October and then keep the disease out of the crop by using a follow-up six to eight weeks later when going through the crop with Kerb. Timing is more important than product,” he says.
While the PGR effect from a spring fungicide will be less important this spring, particularly where crops have been stunted, light leaf spot will be controlled and a sclerotinia spray applied as a matter of course. Applied N rates are based on soil nitrogen supply assessments and follow a low rate of DAP starter fertiliser.
The first two fertiliser applications in the spring will provide 60kg/ha of N and 36kg/ha of sulphate and these are followed by a further application of straight nitrogen to provide as much as 200kg/ha for the crop.
“While the Danes and Germans appear to have little problem securing an even crop, our problem is that too many of our rapes have a host of plants of different growth stages coming out of the winter. When we can master this, we’ll be better able to manipulate and manage a crop in the spring to deliver the consistency we want,” he says.
Growers wishing to visit Project Energise trials this spring should contact their local Grainfarmers Farm Business Manager or UAP agronomist for further details of planned open days.
Source:
Arable - FG
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