Maximising wheat in the rotation

Using wheat as a spring cash crop is showing promise at Lamport.

“In effect, we’re talking continuous wheat, alternating a winter and a spring wheat separated by an autumn cover,” says Niall Atkinson, consultant and trials co-ordinator at Lamport AgX.

“This could be attractive to people who want to maximise their wheat crop, or are struggling to find a profitable break to grow on heavy land under high blackgrass pressure.”

The winter/spring wheat plot is now in its fourth harvest. “Although we have not achieved the winter wheat yields we get after spring beans, perhaps 1-2t/ha down, we can typically produce 16-17t/ha of wheat over a two-year period, which looks quite attractive. It shows you can still farm profitably and keep grassweeds under control. Time will tell if we can keep it going.”

An extended break of two cover crop/spring wheat sequences between the winter wheats will also be compared for blackgrass control and overall profitability. “It might be that this proves more sustainable in the long run, but we shall see,” says Niall.

One caveat thrown up this season is take-all, which has appeared for the first time in winter wheat after spring wheat. “We had thought that having an overwintered cover crop in the ground for five to six months had helped alleviate take-all.

“We had a warm, wet winter and a pretty awful season in terms of plant root growth, which has exacerbated the situation.

“We might have to make amendments to the rotation, but we might also continue with the winter wheat/cover crop/spring wheat sequence to see if the take-all diminishes as with traditional continuous winter wheat.”