Project Lamport: Achieving a good spring seed-bed is key

Article taken from Farmers Weekly, 11th August 2017.

At Project Lamport in Northamptonshire, Agrovista is developing an approach to help growers to get reliable results from drilling spring crops on heavy land.

""Getting a consistent outcome from spring crops on thick, sticky soils is a challenge," says Stewart Woodhead from the company.

""We know they are a key component in blackgrass control, but getting a good seed-bed in the spring can be difficult.""

Cover crops can help, he believes, by conditioning and drying the soil over the winter and allowing direct drilling of the following spring cereal crop.

""In a blackgrass situation, minimal soil disturbance in the spring is important," he says. "" So you make your psring seed-bed in the autumn and use the cover crop to hold the soil together, before destroying it four to six weeks ahead of drilling.""

Cover crops can also have a role in blackgrass control, providing the right species are selected, he maintains.

In grassweed situations, those with low autumn biomass allow blackgrass to germinate in the crop, so that it is controlled when the crop is burnt off.