Once again and as I alluded to in an earlier comment (re: the British Sugar, Newark series), I'm not a Farmer, never have been a Farmer and having retired, am never likely to become one. However, I find your videos exceptionally enjoyable and enlightening. Your delivery on the topics you cover is first class and it's easy to see why you're the luminary you are in the Farming community. You help those of us in the non-farming community understand and appreciate the challenges you all face and underscore how undervalued the Farming industry is, considering how vital it is to the population and wider economy. And I hope I'm not offending you or any of your compatriots by referring to you as Farmers rather than Agriculturists, as there's obviously a huge amount of know-how involved in your daily endeavours.
When we actually get a Ministry of Agriculture back,I mean when they realise they actually need us...would you run it for us🙂 You put this over in such an interesting way.Thanks
This is absolutely the best video you have ever done. They should get you explaining this to kids at colleges and to farmers that bury their heads in the sand
Excellent Andrew. My biggest problem is our very heavy clay which we haven't been able to drill this spring-too wet thanks to Mar/Apr rain and then too late when it dried. It makes for a very difficult season. It also makes a continuous spring cropping scenario on heavy land pretty risky, but so is a continuous winter cropping system.
We didn’t get on ours until end of April/early May but I think ours might of drained quicker that your DD ground. Ours is 80% mix of clay and silt so not boys stuff!!! Sept drilled winter cropping on bad blackgrass land is why there is so much about this year. Need a chat over a 🍻 and 🍷 to fully digest both points of view!
@@WardysWaffleAndrewWard It wasn't fit to drill until at least the last week of May, and then no rain for another 3-4 weeks. I think I've done the right thing. We've taken the opportunity to mole drain it, and then work it down and drill with a CC. It is taking an age to emerge because of lack of moisture though.
You definitely have. We have a few areas not dropped because it was too wet and they are now bone dry. We’ve had 18mm since Fri at the heath but only 9 at the Glebe.
Great video and like being in the classroom. I find it very interesting. Pity I don't live closer to your farm. I'd be there at the weekend pulling those pesky weeds for you.
Very interesting Andrew, you are the example of the difference between a good farmer and an exceptional one. As I tell everyone I speak to about the farming channels I watch on RUclips, you are the one that stands out, it's your attention to detail that always stands out. You certainly know your stuff, costs, cropping, yields and land. Nice work once again 👍
Close in the winter wheats but we’ve finished them yesterday. Starting the spring crops on Monday and because ours were later planted, they are a long way off becoming viable.
Brilliant video, great detail in the slides. Thanks. I wonder if hand roguing is on the Govts list for visas? Seed potato industry is having real issues.
Brilliant video Andrew, like you say zero tolerance is the only way to control the weed, and other weeds, we’re having a real problem with brome and rye grass this year, especially in winter barley.
Hi! Farmer from south Sweden! We are farming on heavy land and are also struggling with blackgrass. I would love to hear more about your strategies and how you think we could handle this problem. Thanks for sharing your farming life here! /Jonatan
Welcome! Our soils are @ 500% clay, 30% silt and 20% sand. Go to update 157 where I go through out strategy for blackgrass. The only thing to do is have zero tolerance to it. This will be our 9th blackgrass free harvest.
Apologies, I see you’ve looked at 157. One bit of advice is do not let the seed shed on the ground. Either spray off with glyphosate if it’s too much to pull, if not pull every weed you can see.
Morning Andrew! Thanks for the very detailed look into how you are handling the black grass on your farm, a lot of farmers around my area have rather a large amount of black grass in there wheat fields. I think you would cry if you saw this. Fenland Rob
Be careful if you do start to get it. Pull it at first sight! I was visiting Shropshire a few years ago, stayed in a hotel and next to the drive was a field with blackgrass in. I met the farmer a few days later and asked him how long had he had it. He replied he doesn’t have blackgrass! I assured him he does and he needs to pull it round up off. He was horrified at the latter!! The next morning I asked him to meet me at the hotel and I’d show him. That happened. The reason he didn’t think he had it was because he didn’t know what it looked like!! Hence, the slide in this weeks update showing it alongside a Bic biro!!
Very interesting video. I see another big RUclips farmer that seems to care little about weed control, I saw him they other day with oats at the end of his arms and zero intrest in pulling them 🙉 Yet you are to the other extreme but not only are yeilds going to be increasing but costs decreasing is brilliant!👍
Up to 3 years ago I was a governor at Bishop Burton so know a lot of the staff and Principle. Rhonda and I used to run a 2 week course for young farm managers and farmers at Riseholme as they are part of BB. I had 2 sessions in the programme, one was on blackgrass, the other was understanding and calculating machinery costs and cost of production. Since Rhonda left and I resigned, the course folded which is a real shame because some of the delegates have gone on to manage big enterprises and do great things.
Very interesting and well thought out approach. I’ve come across rolling and lightly cultivating stubbles (as two separate operations) in a cost effective attempt to chit the black grass seed early. Both with varied results. The traffic light system works really well and how you log and track crop rotation says a lot about you and your set up. Impressive. Have you tried peas or linseed as an alternative spring/break crop Fantastic video, fascinating to watch 👌🏻
I do t believe you need to do anything different to normal cultivations to get it to chit, we never have done. Not grown peas for 15+ years and never grown linseed,
A very interesting video, it looks like you have got it under control. If you start growing (baked beans) what would you stop growing to have the space for them.
Hand pulling has a lot of benefits it would be a good idea to get some of these migrant dinghy people employed on a voluntary basis. If they were willing and capable.
Very interesting presentation Andrew, backed up with accurate data. Do merchants reject loads of grain with blackgrass seeds present in the sampling process? I suspect it is very strict when going for seed but if going for feed, it will be fed to cattle etc and through the animal back on to the field!
A lot sheds on the ground before harvest, the combine blows some more out, some goes in the straw but I’ve no experience of any getting in the combined crop because we don’t have any BG at harvest!
@@WardysWaffleAndrewWard Thank you for your reply Andrew, as they say every day is a school day and you have certainly explained the BG problem and its control to me very well.
Very interesting Andrew, How does hand pulling compare to using something mechanical on the tractor? In cost and effectiveness? I know the kit is out there but you don’t see it in use alot.
I think a lot would get missed because often blackgrass ears are the same height as wheat or lower so I don’t think it is effective. You need 98% control for the seed bank in the soil not to get any worse so you’d leave or miss far more than 2%.
Really interesting lecture, thank you for an excellent presentation! Two things I would like to know is in what stage of the crops you do the weed pulling? At what time is it recognisable/large enough to be pulled without hiding in respective crop? Also, for sugar beets, what do you do when the herbicide (in our case Select Plus) does an excellent job, but 1,5 month later I see so much new blackgrass now coming again as small plants. What is your strategy in the sugar beets, do you have access to select plus or any equivalent? It is so far one of very few herbicides where we do not have any issues with immunity from the blackgrass, but it does not help of course when seeds are late to start growing.
We start pulling in early June which is when the majority of the blackgrass is visible. We walk all crops irrespective of whether the herbicide has done a good job or not because every single blackgrass plant must be removed. We have herbicides for a beet but still walk the beet fields. Remember we don’t rely on herbicides to control blackgrass because all herbicides don’t do a very good job on blackgrass.
@@WardysWaffleAndrewWard Thank you! My current issue is what we had a herbicide that took out all blackgrass that had germinated 1,5 month after drilling the sugar beets beginning of april. Now another month and a half has passed and I see a lot of new small blackgrass germinating in the field (i.e. the grass is 5 cm long and still on the ground), but the sugar beets are now closing the rows with their leafs. Should we wait and see if they go above the leaves to be handpicked or is your experience that these will not grow to be big enough to seed before harvesting the sugar beets which is 2-3 months away from us in south Sweden? Really interested to hear your thoughts as I am the overtaking generation on a farm where I would classify 30% of our fields as red, another 40% as amber and remaining green. Currently they all follow the same crop rotation scheme distributed on 40% winterwheat, 20% sugarbeets, 20% spring barley and 20% oil rapeseed. I do not see this as sustainable and am thinking hard about what to do to stop the blackgrass before everything turns red and the dream of successful farming is flushed down the drain.
I’d wait but hopefully the beet will smother out the blackgrass as no light will get through the canopy. If any do come through you’ll need to hand pull. The 30% red fields definitely need changing from the others and do not grow crops which encourage bg. For us, those are all winter cereals, oil seed rape, spring wheat, beans or sugar beet.
No but that’s why I’m glad about gene editing being allowed. Hopefully in years to come plant breeders will be able to do something so yield isn’t compromised.
Fantastic video Andrew! Very informative. What’s your view on using the plough as a tool in the fight to control blackgrass on particularly bad areas? Cheers
No need to in my opinion. We get great control from all the other things we do. We tried ploughing about 8 years ago but we only did 3 acres because our clays don’t turn over and all the straw and residue was on top. So all it did was create us a huge problem in knocking the soil into a seedbed. I really am very firm in saying bad blackgrass areas should be taken out of winter cropping and put into a spring crop, namely barley, for at least 6 years.
I’ve been away from Farming for 10 years but in 2008/10 we used avadex, I remember spreading it with a boomed air applicator is that not used anymore Andrew?
Hi Andrew, great video. What are your thoughts on grazing stubble turnips prior to the spring barley crop. Do you think this would still offer a good black grass irradiation strategy?
Great Blackgrass explanation.The decision to spray crops off is a tough one, but pays absolute dividends in the long run from my experience, also make the wrong cropping choice and you can be back to square one so quickly. On baling, how are you dealing with Spring barley straw?
That’s why we use a solo! The SLD discs are too small a diameter and don’t mix enough soil with the straw. Chop length is also important. We have all the stationary knives fully down and sharp and try to set the spreading evenly.
Hi Andrew, re the black grass pulling. Do you get any yield loss from pulling black grass (trampling on the crop accidentally while pulling) or is it negligible.
You say you don't bale to prevent contractors bringing in blackgrass seeds, could you not buy a new/used bailer, to collect your straw, then sell/ distribute through forage aid?
Forage Aid hasn’t needed any straw since 2020 and we never know where the next incident is going to be so if I bale and store it and the next weather event is in Wales, we then have a huge cost in haulage. It’s more cost effective to try to locate produce in the locality of the event. Also, the amount of organic matter in straw is huge which is lost when straw is removed and no one will pay the true cost of a ton of straw when you calculate nutrient removal. We hardly use any phosphate or potash because of the straw we incorporate and sewage sludge.
Very interesting! Seen a few farmers weed wiping to control blackgrass, wild oats, rye grass etc is there any figures to how effective this is as part of weed control strategy?
I think a lot would get missed because often blackgrass ears are the same height as wheat or lower so I don’t think it is effective. You need 98% control for the seed bank in the soil not to get any worse so you’d leave or miss far more than 2%.
Very interesting talk. Do you also get shorted on payments if there's too much blackgrass mixed in with the cereals? Or is this not a big problem as I can imagine they drop their seeds before you combine anyway.
Very interesting, dedication, dedication is the word for eradication, well presented lecture, thank you.
Once again and as I alluded to in an earlier comment (re: the British Sugar, Newark series), I'm not a Farmer, never have been a Farmer and having retired, am never likely to become one. However, I find your videos exceptionally enjoyable and enlightening. Your delivery on the topics you cover is first class and it's easy to see why you're the luminary you are in the Farming community. You help those of us in the non-farming community understand and appreciate the challenges you all face and underscore how undervalued the Farming industry is, considering how vital it is to the population and wider economy. And I hope I'm not offending you or any of your compatriots by referring to you as Farmers rather than Agriculturists, as there's obviously a huge amount of know-how involved in your daily endeavours.
Thank you, pleased you find the content interesting,
When we actually get a Ministry of Agriculture back,I mean when they realise they actually need us...would you run it for us🙂
You put this over in such an interesting way.Thanks
😂😂😂 You’re spot on with when they realise they actually need us!!
This is absolutely the best video you have ever done. They should get you explaining this to kids at colleges and to farmers that bury their heads in the sand
Thanks, I’d be in my box before I got round them all!!!
Excellent video and very interesting. 🚜🚜
Excellent Andrew. My biggest problem is our very heavy clay which we haven't been able to drill this spring-too wet thanks to Mar/Apr rain and then too late when it dried. It makes for a very difficult season. It also makes a continuous spring cropping scenario on heavy land pretty risky, but so is a continuous winter cropping system.
We didn’t get on ours until end of April/early May but I think ours might of drained quicker that your DD ground. Ours is 80% mix of clay and silt so not boys stuff!!!
Sept drilled winter cropping on bad blackgrass land is why there is so much about this year.
Need a chat over a 🍻 and 🍷 to fully digest both points of view!
@@WardysWaffleAndrewWard It wasn't fit to drill until at least the last week of May, and then no rain for another 3-4 weeks. I think I've done the right thing. We've taken the opportunity to mole drain it, and then work it down and drill with a CC. It is taking an age to emerge because of lack of moisture though.
You definitely have. We have a few areas not dropped because it was too wet and they are now bone dry. We’ve had 18mm since Fri at the heath but only 9 at the Glebe.
Great video and like being in the classroom. I find it very interesting. Pity I don't live closer to your farm. I'd be there at the weekend pulling those pesky weeds for you.
👌😊👍
Very interesting Andrew, you are the example of the difference between a good farmer and an exceptional one. As I tell everyone I speak to about the farming channels I watch on RUclips, you are the one that stands out, it's your attention to detail that always stands out. You certainly know your stuff, costs, cropping, yields and land. Nice work once again 👍
Thank you, it’s the way my Dad taught me to farm.
your just a good farmer
Fascinating insight Into your black grass regime. And not obscuring the costs and huge benefits.
Costings are key . If you don't measure you can't manage. Brilliant edition.
Incidentally how close is BG seed to shedding and subsequent viability ?
Close in the winter wheats but we’ve finished them yesterday. Starting the spring crops on Monday and because ours were later planted, they are a long way off becoming viable.
Brilliant video, great detail in the slides. Thanks.
I wonder if hand roguing is on the Govts list for visas?
Seed potato industry is having real issues.
Brilliant video Andrew, like you say zero tolerance is the only way to control the weed, and other weeds, we’re having a real problem with brome and rye grass this year, especially in winter barley.
Brome is our next problem I can see
Hi! Farmer from south Sweden! We are farming on heavy land and are also struggling with blackgrass. I would love to hear more about your strategies and how you think we could handle this problem.
Thanks for sharing your farming life here!
/Jonatan
Welcome! Our soils are @ 500% clay, 30% silt and 20% sand. Go to update 157 where I go through out strategy for blackgrass. The only thing to do is have zero tolerance to it. This will be our 9th blackgrass free harvest.
Apologies, I see you’ve looked at 157. One bit of advice is do not let the seed shed on the ground. Either spray off with glyphosate if it’s too much to pull, if not pull every weed you can see.
For whatever the reasons it’s been a bad year for blackgrass and wild oats. Good to see you get on top of it 👍
Lots record keeping there but that’s the only way you can compare yearly cost and improvements well done
A very interesting video this week Andrew Great Job 💯👏👌👍
Morning Andrew! Thanks for the very detailed look into how you are handling the black grass on your farm, a lot of farmers around my area have rather a large amount of black grass in there wheat fields. I think you would cry if you saw this. Fenland Rob
Hello Rob, I’m glad I’m not their neighbour!!
Very interesting video Andrew, you have a good system in tackling black grass and how the costings are worked out.
Comprehensively covered - thank you
Don't have blackgrass up here, but your principle applies to any weed. Fantastic that you can present such accurate data.
Be careful if you do start to get it. Pull it at first sight! I was visiting Shropshire a few years ago, stayed in a hotel and next to the drive was a field with blackgrass in. I met the farmer a few days later and asked him how long had he had it. He replied he doesn’t have blackgrass! I assured him he does and he needs to pull it round up off. He was horrified at the latter!! The next morning I asked him to meet me at the hotel and I’d show him. That happened. The reason he didn’t think he had it was because he didn’t know what it looked like!! Hence, the slide in this weeks update showing it alongside a Bic biro!!
@@WardysWaffleAndrewWard thank you for all the good work you do to help and educate us. your attention to detail is an inspiration.
Really interesting video. As a non farmer I wondered why you don’t like black grass, thank you for explaining it.
It’s the most yield robbing weed there is. Thanks for the comment. 👍😊
Excellent Video. Look forward to seeing part 2
Very interesting video.
I see another big RUclips farmer that seems to care little about weed control, I saw him they other day with oats at the end of his arms and zero intrest in pulling them 🙉
Yet you are to the other extreme but not only are yeilds going to be increasing but costs decreasing is brilliant!👍
🤦♂️
Andrew, that presentation was SO interesting, thankyou
👍😊
It does amaze me how many fields are left full of BG. It just gets worse and worse.
I hope they use you at Riseholme, Andrew. The ag students need to hear your talk about blackgrass control. Excellent video as usual.
Up to 3 years ago I was a governor at Bishop Burton so know a lot of the staff and Principle. Rhonda and I used to run a 2 week course for young farm managers and farmers at Riseholme as they are part of BB. I had 2 sessions in the programme, one was on blackgrass, the other was understanding and calculating machinery costs and cost of production. Since Rhonda left and I resigned, the course folded which is a real shame because some of the delegates have gone on to manage big enterprises and do great things.
Very interesting and well thought out approach.
I’ve come across rolling and lightly cultivating stubbles (as two separate operations) in a cost effective attempt to chit the black grass seed early. Both with varied results.
The traffic light system works really well and how you log and track crop rotation says a lot about you and your set up. Impressive.
Have you tried peas or linseed as an alternative spring/break crop
Fantastic video, fascinating to watch 👌🏻
I do t believe you need to do anything different to normal cultivations to get it to chit, we never have done. Not grown peas for 15+ years and never grown linseed,
Very good Andrew thank you
Morning Andrew,very intresting video this morning👍👍
Morning nice, glad you enjoyed it.
A very interesting video, it looks like you have got it under control.
If you start growing (baked beans) what would you stop growing to have the space for them.
We’d reduce the area of ordinary beans.
@@WardysWaffleAndrewWard yes I thought you may do that, looks a good opportunity if the trials go as well as other farmers may do the same.
great update andrew
Hand pulling has a lot of benefits it would be a good idea to get some of these migrant dinghy people employed on a voluntary basis. If they were willing and capable.
Definitely!!!
Very interesting presentation Andrew, backed up with accurate data. Do merchants reject loads of grain with blackgrass seeds present in the sampling process? I suspect it is very strict when going for seed but if going for feed, it will be fed to cattle etc and through the animal back on to the field!
A lot sheds on the ground before harvest, the combine blows some more out, some goes in the straw but I’ve no experience of any getting in the combined crop because we don’t have any BG at harvest!
@@WardysWaffleAndrewWard Thank you for your reply Andrew, as they say every day is a school day and you have certainly explained the BG problem and its control to me very well.
Very interesting Andrew, How does hand pulling compare to using something mechanical on the tractor? In cost and effectiveness? I know the kit is out there but you don’t see it in use alot.
I think a lot would get missed because often blackgrass ears are the same height as wheat or lower so I don’t think it is effective. You need 98% control for the seed bank in the soil not to get any worse so you’d leave or miss far more than 2%.
Really interesting lecture, thank you for an excellent presentation! Two things I would like to know is in what stage of the crops you do the weed pulling? At what time is it recognisable/large enough to be pulled without hiding in respective crop? Also, for sugar beets, what do you do when the herbicide (in our case Select Plus) does an excellent job, but 1,5 month later I see so much new blackgrass now coming again as small plants. What is your strategy in the sugar beets, do you have access to select plus or any equivalent? It is so far one of very few herbicides where we do not have any issues with immunity from the blackgrass, but it does not help of course when seeds are late to start growing.
We start pulling in early June which is when the majority of the blackgrass is visible. We walk all crops irrespective of whether the herbicide has done a good job or not because every single blackgrass plant must be removed. We have herbicides for a beet but still walk the beet fields. Remember we don’t rely on herbicides to control blackgrass because all herbicides don’t do a very good job on blackgrass.
@@WardysWaffleAndrewWard Thank you! My current issue is what we had a herbicide that took out all blackgrass that had germinated 1,5 month after drilling the sugar beets beginning of april. Now another month and a half has passed and I see a lot of new small blackgrass germinating in the field (i.e. the grass is 5 cm long and still on the ground), but the sugar beets are now closing the rows with their leafs. Should we wait and see if they go above the leaves to be handpicked or is your experience that these will not grow to be big enough to seed before harvesting the sugar beets which is 2-3 months away from us in south Sweden? Really interested to hear your thoughts as I am the overtaking generation on a farm where I would classify 30% of our fields as red, another 40% as amber and remaining green. Currently they all follow the same crop rotation scheme distributed on 40% winterwheat, 20% sugarbeets, 20% spring barley and 20% oil rapeseed. I do not see this as sustainable and am thinking hard about what to do to stop the blackgrass before everything turns red and the dream of successful farming is flushed down the drain.
I’d wait but hopefully the beet will smother out the blackgrass as no light will get through the canopy. If any do come through you’ll need to hand pull.
The 30% red fields definitely need changing from the others and do not grow crops which encourage bg. For us, those are all winter cereals, oil seed rape, spring wheat, beans or sugar beet.
@@WardysWaffleAndrewWard Much appreciated, thanks!
Thanks Andrew can you get bugs to eat your black glasses or get scientists to make some bugs 🐛 to eat your grass
No but that’s why I’m glad about gene editing being allowed. Hopefully in years to come plant breeders will be able to do something so yield isn’t compromised.
Fantastic video Andrew! Very informative. What’s your view on using the plough as a tool in the fight to control blackgrass on particularly bad areas? Cheers
No need to in my opinion. We get great control from all the other things we do. We tried ploughing about 8 years ago but we only did 3 acres because our clays don’t turn over and all the straw and residue was on top. So all it did was create us a huge problem in knocking the soil into a seedbed. I really am very firm in saying bad blackgrass areas should be taken out of winter cropping and put into a spring crop, namely barley, for at least 6 years.
Thank you for your reply Andrew 👍🏻
I’ve been away from Farming for 10 years but in 2008/10 we used avadex, I remember spreading it with a boomed air applicator is that not used anymore Andrew?
If you look at my costings comparison slide, you see it there.
Hi Andrew, great video. What are your thoughts on grazing stubble turnips prior to the spring barley crop. Do you think this would still offer a good black grass irradiation strategy?
I don’t think it would make any difference because the blackgrass seed is in the soil. The minute the barley is drilled, the seed is disturbed.
👍👍👍👍👍👍🐶🐶🐶🐶
Great Blackgrass explanation.The decision to spray crops off is a tough one, but pays absolute dividends in the long run from my experience, also make the wrong cropping choice and you can be back to square one so quickly. On baling, how are you dealing with Spring barley straw?
Thanks. We chop on the combine and incorporate it and all other crop residue.
@@WardysWaffleAndrewWard Interesting, we’ve tried that in the past when we ran an SLD and really struggled with blocking.
That’s why we use a solo! The SLD discs are too small a diameter and don’t mix enough soil with the straw. Chop length is also important. We have all the stationary knives fully down and sharp and try to set the spreading evenly.
Hi Andrew, re the black grass pulling. Do you get any yield loss from pulling black grass (trampling on the crop accidentally while pulling) or is it negligible.
Not noticeable, the crop gets back up by the time harvest comes.
You say you don't bale to prevent contractors bringing in blackgrass seeds, could you not buy a new/used bailer, to collect your straw, then sell/ distribute through forage aid?
Forage Aid hasn’t needed any straw since 2020 and we never know where the next incident is going to be so if I bale and store it and the next weather event is in Wales, we then have a huge cost in haulage. It’s more cost effective to try to locate produce in the locality of the event. Also, the amount of organic matter in straw is huge which is lost when straw is removed and no one will pay the true cost of a ton of straw when you calculate nutrient removal. We hardly use any phosphate or potash because of the straw we incorporate and sewage sludge.
Very interesting! Seen a few farmers weed wiping to control blackgrass, wild oats, rye grass etc is there any figures to how effective this is as part of weed control strategy?
I think a lot would get missed because often blackgrass ears are the same height as wheat or lower so I don’t think it is effective. You need 98% control for the seed bank in the soil not to get any worse so you’d leave or miss far more than 2%.
Have any trials been done with Cambridge rollers Vs flat rollers for pre emerergence. Herbicide control? US farmer's only seem to use flat rollers!
Not sure, I’ve not seen any.
Great video Andrew, what is your though on future of OSR with seed dressing?
In what way?
Very interesting talk. Do you also get shorted on payments if there's too much blackgrass mixed in with the cereals? Or is this not a big problem as I can imagine they drop their seeds before you combine anyway.
Most seed drops before harvest but not all. I think it’s so light the combine blows it out.
Suagar beet,?? or Sugar beet.?
Sugar