Article taken from the Arable Farming
Another black-grass project with a five-year timeline is Project Lamport, a new initiative from Agrovista and Bayer CropScience.
Located in Northamptonshire on a heavy landsite with a high indigenous black-grass population, the project aims to reduce black-grass populations while maintaining profitable crop production.
The project comprises seven different rotational approaches, taking in winter and spring cropping as well as initiatives such as new autumn cover crops and spring wheat rotations, traditional fallows and hybrid rye for AD plants.
These will be evaluated against a traditional winter wheat/oilseed rape rotation.
In the final year, all rotations will culminate in winter wheat and the success of each rotation will be assessed on final black-grass control and economic return. Agrovista also intends to assess the nutritional and soil conditioning benefits cover crops might bring.
According to technical manager Mark Hemmant, the big story from this first year of the project is the success of a black oat+vetch autumn cover crop ahead of spring-sown wheat.
He says: “An autumn cover crop or autumn black oat+vetch cover crop and then direct sowing significantly reduces the amount of black-grass.
Direct sowing
“In the spring wheat, the cover crop allowed us to direct sow because it did the soil structuring. The residue it left allowed minimum soil disturbance with the direct drill.”
Black-grass head counts show a reduction to 4.3 heads/sq.m after an autumn cover crop, compared to 15.3 after an autumn fallow.
Mr Hemmant says: “Our selection criteria for the cover crop was drying out at depth but leaving a surface residue. At drilling we want a cover crop which will structure the soil for us.”
Growers are asking if they are looking at a £150/ha black-grass control programme adds Mr Hemmant.
“Well, yes, we have one of those. But can we guarantee it works? No we can’t. We have to do something different to keep growing combinable crops when they have this sort of problem.
“We are in a muddle, even with the best chemistry we have, we are almost dependent on the weather as to whether it is going to work or not. So we have to do something different to try and get the black-grass population down.”
Project Lamport cover crop selection criteria
Another black-grass project with a five-year timeline is Project Lamport, a new initiative from Agrovista and Bayer CropScience.
Located in Northamptonshire on a heavy landsite with a high indigenous black-grass population, the project aims to reduce black-grass populations while maintaining profitable crop production.
The project comprises seven different rotational approaches, taking in winter and spring cropping as well as initiatives such as new autumn cover crops and spring wheat rotations, traditional fallows and hybrid rye for AD plants.
These will be evaluated against a traditional winter wheat/oilseed rape rotation.
In the final year, all rotations will culminate in winter wheat and the success of each rotation will be assessed on final black-grass control and economic return. Agrovista also intends to assess the nutritional and soil conditioning benefits cover crops might bring.
According to technical manager Mark Hemmant, the big story from this first year of the project is the success of a black oat+vetch autumn cover crop ahead of spring-sown wheat.
He says: “An autumn cover crop or autumn black oat+vetch cover crop and then direct sowing significantly reduces the amount of black-grass.
Direct sowing
“In the spring wheat, the cover crop allowed us to direct sow because it did the soil structuring. The residue it left allowed minimum soil disturbance with the direct drill.”
Black-grass head counts show a reduction to 4.3 heads/sq.m after an autumn cover crop, compared to 15.3 after an autumn fallow.
Mr Hemmant says: “Our selection criteria for the cover crop was drying out at depth but leaving a surface residue. At drilling we want a cover crop which will structure the soil for us.”
Growers are asking if they are looking at a £150/ha black-grass control programme adds Mr Hemmant.
“Well, yes, we have one of those. But can we guarantee it works? No we can’t. We have to do something different to keep growing combinable crops when they have this sort of problem.
“We are in a muddle, even with the best chemistry we have, we are almost dependent on the weather as to whether it is going to work or not. So we have to do something different to try and get the black-grass population down.”
Project Lamport cover crop selection criteria
Dry soil out at depth, but leave a surface residue to keep moisture in the establishment zone
Soil structure benefit is to allow direct drilling of spring wheat (do not want to create a seedbed for black-grass in the spring)
Maximise opportunity for out of crop control: not too much cover early allows grass-weeds to germinate; and the ability to sow later is beneficial as you may be able to get a seedbed before
Must not reduce performance of spring crop
Low risk to rotation (take-all break, non brassicas)
Easy to control if occurs as a volunteer
Easy to destroy in early spring (cover crops and black-grass)