Break crop or not for reseeding

farawaygrass

Planning on doing a bit of reseeding in spring. The farm is a stoney in general with nice clay on top, varying in dept. is it better to use a break crop, and if so what would ye think is best option? If not, is a power harrow or direct drill as good as oppress to ploughing? Teagasc think so but the old man and his friends think the opposite. And would one break crop do or would you want to let it back to grass on the third year?

Greengrass1

16 of 24 ac we did here thus yr had redstart And rape in it in autumn. Gave a good reseed this spring but ye don't need a break crop. We reseed straight after grass and no difference.

heifers grazing redstart

being disced after the redstart

reseed up after 10 days

farawaygrass

Cheers for that. Kinda what I wanted to hear too, keep it simple enough for myself

Greengrass1

farawaygrass wrote: »

Cheers for that. Kinda what I wanted to hear too, keep it simple enough for myself

We only did that because we were tight for silage and that ground needed reseeding. But if your ground is in top condition with good and o and k I'd think hard of turning it down

nhg

If going to the bother & expense of reseed ploughing is the best job (for us anyway - any neighbours that did direct drill weren't all that successful) we have done 27 acres over the last 2 years with another 10 - 15 planned for this year, with a plan for a minimum of 10 acres every year.

It's a great job but needs to be done before 1st of September at the latest for best weed control & to be able to get a grazing on it before the end of the year.

Farmer Pudsey

If the farm is stoney with only a small depth then I be slow to plough. Picking stones is a hard job and requires loads of labour. You also do not want to be mixing clay and stone.

If you decide on a winter forage crop such as Kale or Rape, then you can sow these with out ploughing. Ideally clay soils need ploughing but if you do not have the dept there is little advantage in doing same. No point in haveing a break crop unless it is of benefit to you and the land.

I find discing adequate for reseeding, however you need lime to keep top od soil ph right at reseeding even though ground ph may be ok. In any mintill reseeding operation a lime product like G-lime or granline is a good idea.

blue5000

OP I have tried it both ways, direct drill can be hit and miss, a lot depends on the weather after doing it. If you have scutch I reckon you would be better off with a break crop, spray roundup before ploughing for a cereal, and then again roundup pre-harvest and sow grass seed that autumn after the harvest.

Ploughing has a couple of disadvantages, (1) stones and (2) the most fertile soil is on top, if you only plough once you bury this fertility, but by ploughing a second time this good soil is brought back to the surface.

Last few years I've been ploughing for kale/redstart then ploughing again in the spring for arable silage undersown with grass, but this year I aim to grow barley on it's own after the kale and reseed in the autumn. A lot depends on your soil type and how heavily you are stocked, higher SR means you have to get it back into grass quicker. Your ol' fella might have bad memories of picking stones in that field! He'd give you the best advice.

farawaygrass

He says himself ploughing is best but he picked over a 100 14x7 trailer loads on one 6 acre field one time they reclaimed it so that would defin turn me off ploughing half our fields at least. Discing is the other thing, If burned and disced a few times, when would u spread the line? After Discing but before grass seed?

blue5000

Better to disc in the lime.

Greengrass1

farawaygrass wrote: »

He says himself ploughing is best but he picked over a 100 14x7 trailer loads on one 6 acre field one time they reclaimed it so that would defin turn me off ploughing half our fields at least. Discing is the other thing, If burned and disced a few times, when would u spread the line? After Discing but before grass seed?

Disc being used here. Contractor after buying power harrow with seed box so ilk get him to use that next yrs after disc.
What we do is spray off after being grazes or take bales off after few days of being sprayed leaves a cleaner butt and quicker to chop up with discs.
We spread the seed then fert and lime roll x2 or3 and bag of N then when its up. You should have it back in 6 wks.
We use bag lime here. 100kgs/ac

Farmer Pudsey

blue5000 wrote: »

Better to disc in the lime.

Not granlime/glime till in to top inch but would not disc in

Greengrass1

Farmer Pudsey wrote: »

Not granlime/glime till in to top inch but would not disc in

We did it works very well. Going to till in a bag of K/acre next time we go reseeding. And put feast if fert on with seed

Deepsouthwest

farawaygrass wrote: »

He says himself ploughing is best but he picked over a 100 14x7 trailer loads on one 6 acre field one time they reclaimed it so that would defin turn me off ploughing half our fields at least. Discing is the other thing, If burned and disced a few times, when would u spread the line? After Discing but before grass seed?

100 trailers of stones in a 6 acre reclaimed field, was it previously a quarry?!! Hope u had a lot of drains for all those stones

stanflt

Greengrass1 wrote: »

Disc being used here. Contractor after buying power harrow with seed box so ilk get him to use that next yrs after disc.
What we do is spray off after being grazes or take bales off after few days of being sprayed leaves a cleaner butt and quicker to chop up with discs.
We spread the seed then fert and lime roll x2 or3 and bag of N then when its up. You should have it back in 6 wks.
We use bag lime here. 100kgs/ac

Gg no offence but you disc job this year didn't do to well if I remember- I had 2 grazings of 1200 covers off mime when yours was only 500 cover if memory serves me correctly


I would be a big fan of breaking the sod to 9 inches but doesn't need to be a plough

Greengrass1

stanflt wrote: »

Gg no offence but you disc job this year didn't do to well if I remember- I had 2 grazings of 1200 covers off mime when yours was only 500 cover if memory serves me correctly


I would be a big fan of breaking the sod to 9 inches but doesn't need to be a plough

Ah it was sowed in very dry tine no rain for 4 wks. No reseed would be good after that.
Came on very well after.

Farrell

If soil depth is an issue would a rotivator be an option

Farmer Pudsey

farawaygrass wrote: »

He says himself ploughing is best but he picked over a 100 14x7 trailer loads on one 6 acre field one time they reclaimed it so that would defin turn me off ploughing half our fields at least. Discing is the other thing, If burned and disced a few times, when would u spread the line? After Discing but before grass seed?

Would definately not plough that type of land. However you need an independent disc. This is where all discs have springs and kilk up and back down independnt of each other. An old smaller tye tisc would be better than the big tillage ones in use nowadays if independent disc not available. Stiching and other min till are also an option.

After disc do not use power harrow it will bring up lots of stone as well. Spray land graze off and leve stubble burn off. It may take 3-4 weeks for this to happen and it may green up slightly again if so spray again with 1/2-1L gysophate again. This is if you cannot get an independent disc harrow.

Then Chain harrow to level put in seed, lime anf fertlizer and then the 3 r's

Roll, roll and roll again.

remember to post emergence spray

Willfarman

Heavy land here. I done a bit in late May early June this year. A culmination of ridiculous money going for store cattle, and a surplus of grass so it was a good chance.. However I wouldn't ever reseed in the early summer again. It didn't plough up well. The weeds were like a jungle at one stage My own fault for not going with the post emergance spray. I know. I seen neighbours doing a bit in late August. It was dry and it ploughed a lot better, was easier to break up and level and struck really well. Very few weeds, I grazed it with sheep in October, and have to say it won't be behind my own in the spring.

just do it

Disc will bring up stones as well. If the field is level just go with a chain harrow. Has worked well for me here and no picking stones.

First and foremost you need to soil sample to see what fertiliser/ lime it needs.

Robson99

Do some lads roll the ground mire than once after putting in the seed??
Have always found one go to be enough. Always notice the headland to be over compacted where turning with the roller and this area is always the slower to emerge.
Also over rolling leads to more tractor tyre marks.

blue5000

Depends on your soil, mostly sandy soil here and the headlands would come up first. Usually roll dry ground twice when reseeding. If soil is damp when rolling it will cap on top.