Wild Bird Cover- Glas

sea12

I know there is a few threads on Glas but they keep going off on discussions on payments due from last year. So I opened a new one but Mods please merge if you think it is a duplication.
I have a few acres of WBC to grow for Glas this year and based on the experience from last year I wanted to see what people would recommend or not recommend.

Firstly is it permissible to use roundup to spray off the area inadvance?

What seeds did people plant and would they use the same again?

What was the most effective way of planting the crop. No point handing over all the money to a contractor to plough and sow the crop.

For those in the second year how well are ye able to clear the crop to establish a new crop.

Thanks for any replies

Sami23

I'm in the same boat sea12, it'll be my first year at it too.
What I'm wondering is what is the cheapest seed to buy per hectare of Oats, Barley, Wheat or Triticale and which of Mustard or Linseed is the cheaper seed as want to keep costs to a mimimum.

Also how much bagged fertiliser do you need or are allowed to use at sowing time ?
Tia

blue5000

OP I'll leave it separate as lots of ppl will be doing it around now anyway


P 80_81, roundup pre sowing is allowed.

https://www.agriculture.gov.ie/farmerschemespayments/glas/glastranche3/

Specifications is the pdf to look up.

sea12

blue5000 wrote: »

OP I'll leave it separate as lots of ppl will be doing t around now anyway


P 80_81, roundup pre sowing is allowed.

https://www.agriculture.gov.ie/farmerschemespayments/glas/glastranche3/

Specifications is the pdf to look up.

Cheers Blue. I'm most interested in any response from last years participants. I know base price and a few more commented on theirs so really looking for what people would recommend after their experience one year on.

Wildsurfer

I planted a few acres of Barley/Linseed mix last year. I got contractor in as he was reseeding a good lot of grassland for me so another few acres wasnt a big deal. I sprayed off old grassland first, he ploughed and tilled and set linseed and I came back and broadcast Barley seed. Linseed grew very well but birds took every bit of barley and from what I read on other thread on here that was a common problem. At the moment I am left with the linseed stalk with grass coming underneath. It will be easily ploughed in as is or I could burn off and do a one pass. This year I might go Kale as I think that's another option but I'd like to hear what others are doing here. Is a wildflower strip allowed?

Waffletraktor

Sami23 wrote: »

What I'm wondering is what is the cheapest seed to buy per hectare of Oats, Barley, Wheat or Triticale and which of Mustard or Linseed is the cheaper seed as want to keep costs to a mimimum.

Find your nearest arable farm with a varied rotation and dip into the pile, paying royalty fees or just having lots of volunteers is up to you.

Fireside Solicitor

I used oats and linseed last year and worked grand. Didn't spray off the grass just did one pass and it took grand. Linseed took off well and my guru of a soil man tells me it will do the soil a power of good over next few years as the area is very bad. Will stay the same this year, no spray, plough it and one pass.

blue5000

Waffletraktor wrote: »

Find your nearest arable farm with a varied rotation and dip into the pile, paying royalty fees or just having lots of volunteers is up to you.

You might need seed labels for an inspection though?

jimmy G M

blue5000 wrote: »

You might need seed labels for an inspection though?

Yes you need receipts for what you purchased to verify what you did.

Sligoronan

I thought u could not spray with pesticides or did I read it wrong.

sea12

Sligoronan wrote: »

I thought u could not spray with pesticides or did I read it wrong.

You can't spray after sowing but you can use Round up to help prepare for sowing

Cavanjack

sea12 wrote: »

You can't spray after sowing but you can use Round up to help prepare for sowing

You can also spot spray weeds in the wbc

Waffletraktor

blue5000 wrote: »

You might need seed labels for an inspection though?

All a label means is royalties paid and the seedline it came from, pay your royalties (about 20-30£/ton on home saved seed) and give them the original seedline(be in farmers records for assurance)and you'll be given the same thing.
Cleaning and dressing are personal choice.

Capercaillie

My kale at weekend. The kale was buzzing with bumbebees. Farm on coastal location in North West so hardly any wildflowers around yet.There was some noise of bees. I gave it a shake of the 18-6-12.

Planted it last year: kale/triticale/mustard. The mustard didn't grow great though. My Ag consultant said I needed the triticale to act a nursery crop to protect kale/mustard from driving winter gales. When I resow next year I might replace the mustard with linseed. I think linseed is fairly hardly?

Sami23

Sami23 wrote: »

I'm in the same boat sea12, it'll be my first year at it too.
What I'm wondering is what is the cheapest seed to buy per hectare of Oats, Barley, Wheat or Triticale and which of Mustard or Linseed is the cheaper seed as want to keep costs to a mimimum.

Also how much bagged fertiliser do you need or are allowed to use at sowing time ?
Tia

Can anyone tell us newbies to WBC what prices the various seeds are ?

jimmy G M

Sami23 wrote: »

Can anyone tell us newbies to WBC what prices the various seeds are ?

Sowed 3 acres kale & 3 acres of oats last year. 2 year rotation so only Oats needs to be re-sown this year. Off the top of my head, certified oat seed aprox €25/acre and kale €30/acre. Ploughing €50 acre, couple of runs of power harrow maybe €50/acre. We used our own disc harrow, sowed with manure shaker, chain harrow and rolled, didn't bother with any fert last year, so establishment cost was not huge.

jimmy G M

I'm hoping to re-sow 3 acres of Oats WBC in the next day or so.

Pic 1 is of the WBC in Jan, lots of grass in the Oats, so let in 10 weanlings for 2 weeks around March 17th. They ate some of the grass and trampled down the thrash a bit.

Pics 2 & 3 are of WBC this evening as I was running over the ground with the disc harrow. Didn't bother to plough. Ground is pretty hard so added some weight to the harrow. Ill need to give do about 6 runs i'd say. Shake oats with fert spreader, chain harrow and roll is the plan. There's plenty of stubble on the ground but I think it will strike away. Will prob shake 2 bags of 10.10.20 to give it a boost on.

Rain forecast for friday, no work tomorrow so will push to finish the job tomorrow.

Username John

jimmy G M wrote: »

I'm hoping to re-sow 3 acres of Oats WBC in the next day or so.

Pic 1 is of the WBC in Jan, lots of grass in the Oats, so let in 10 weanlings for 2 weeks around March 17th. They ate some of the grass and trampled down the thrash a bit.

Pics 2 & 3 are of WBC this evening as I was running over the ground with the disc harrow. Didn't bother to plough. Ground is pretty hard so added some weight to the harrow. Ill need to give do about 6 runs i'd say. Shake oats with fert spreader, chain harrow and roll is the plan. There's plenty of stubble on the ground but I think it will strike away. Will prob shake 2 bags of 10.10.20 to give it a boost on.

Rain forecast for friday, no work tomorrow so will push to finish the job tomorrow.

Lovely flat dry looking field Jimmy...

The disc doesn't seem to be cutting it up much? But maybe after 6 runs as you say it'll be reddened fairly well...

Sami23

jimmy G M wrote: »

Sami23 wrote: »

Can anyone tell us newbies to WBC what prices the various seeds are ?

Sowed 3 acres kale & 3 acres of oats last year. 2 year rotation so only Oats needs to be re-sown this year. Off the top of my head, certified oat seed aprox €25/acre and kale €30/acre. Ploughing €50 acre, couple of runs of power harrow maybe €50/acre. We used our own disc harrow, sowed with manure shaker, chain harrow and rolled, didn't bother with any fert last year, so establishment cost was not huge.

Did you find it grew OK without any fert as this would be a good cost saving ?

Waffletraktor

jimmy G M wrote: »

I'm hoping to re-sow 3 acres of Oats WBC in the next day or so.

Pic 1 is of the WBC in Jan, lots of grass in the Oats, so let in 10 weanlings for 2 weeks around March 17th. They ate some of the grass and trampled down the thrash a bit.

Pics 2 & 3 are of WBC this evening as I was running over the ground with the disc harrow. Didn't bother to plough. Ground is pretty hard so added some weight to the harrow. Ill need to give do about 6 runs i'd say. Shake oats with fert spreader, chain harrow and roll is the plan. There's plenty of stubble on the ground but I think it will strike away. Will prob shake 2 bags of 10.10.20 to give it a boost on.

Rain forecast for friday, no work tomorrow so will push to finish the job tomorrow.

Can you adjust the angle on your discs jimmy?
One issue with wbc is you'll have seeds there putting out plants/ weeds for the next few years if you go to back to grass

Capercaillie

jimmy G M wrote: »

I'm hoping to re-sow 3 acres of Oats WBC in the next day or so.

Pic 1 is of the WBC in Jan, lots of grass in the Oats, so let in 10 weanlings for 2 weeks around March 17th. They ate some of the grass and trampled down the thrash a bit.

Pics 2 & 3 are of WBC this evening as I was running over the ground with the disc harrow. Didn't bother to plough. Ground is pretty hard so added some weight to the harrow. Ill need to give do about 6 runs i'd say. Shake oats with fert spreader, chain harrow and roll is the plan. There's plenty of stubble on the ground but I think it will strike away. Will prob shake 2 bags of 10.10.20 to give it a boost on.

Rain forecast for friday, no work tomorrow so will push to finish the job tomorrow.

Cattle did a quality job on it.

Base price

sea12 wrote: »

I know there is a few threads on Glas but they keep going off on discussions on payments due from last year. So I opened a new one but Mods please merge if you think it is a duplication.
I have a few acres of WBC to grow for Glas this year and based on the experience from last year I wanted to see what people would recommend or not recommend.

Firstly is it permissible to use roundup to spray off the area inadvance?

What seeds did people plant and would they use the same again?

What was the most effective way of planting the crop. No point handing over all the money to a contractor to plough and sow the crop.

For those in the second year how well are ye able to clear the crop to establish a new crop.

Thanks for any replies

We put 39 yearling FR bulls into the smaller area of WBC (about 1.5 acres) last Monday that has a good cover of grass and dead linseed stems. TBH they are making feck all impact on the linseed stems except where they lie on them I met a local contractor in the shop during the week and he told me that the linseed stems are like wire.
I will see how tilling goes in a few weeks for this years crop and if there is a issue with the linseed stems then we will change. I really don't want to plough again this year as power harrowing should be enough to establish a seed bed.

Lady Haywire

Our contractor is here today at slurry so we're sending him up to look at it. Hoping that discing might be enough to break it up.....be annoyed if we've to plough again.

serfspup

you are allowed to graze off last years crop so why bother with roundup?
from my experience the best crop for wildbirds (finches)is redshank not on the list of approved seeds?

kale&wheat is a good mix and worth feeding to sheep in march/april

for fun mix in sunflower seed

Base price

serfspup wrote: »

you are allowed to graze off last years crop so why bother with roundup?
from my experience the best crop for wildbirds (finches)is redshank not on the list of approved seeds?

kale&wheat is a good mix and worth feeding to sheep in march/april

for fun mix in sunflower seed

What mix are you using and is it approved?

jimmy G M

Got that job done today. Biggest issue was finding seed oats - got it at 3rd merchant - very scarce apparently so i'd say buy what ever you need soon.

Username John wrote: »

Lovely flat dry looking field Jimmy...

The disc doesn't seem to be cutting it up much? But maybe after 6 runs as you say it'll be reddened fairly well...

Land we have rented John, fairly typical of around here, good depth of clay soil, a bit on the yellow side, not so much sand / grit through it so can be sticky.

Took about 6 runs to get it to a reasonable state, disc's on the harrow are not adjustable and ground was pretty hard down a few inches so didnt make a huge impact. If I was paying a contractor to do the job, I'd say power harrow would be my preference, but we have the disc so went with that. Ground for oats doesn't need to be that well tilled for seed to take.

Next year when re-planting the Kale, I'll prob plough the whole plot to bury the thrash and make it easier to till. Ill think Ill rotate the crops around too.

Sami23 wrote: »

Did you find it grew OK without any fert as this would be a good cost saving ?

Spread no fert at all last year on either the oats or the Kale. Both crops took well and I was happy with the cover, however it was ley land. I put 2 bags 10.10.20 and 1 bag of Granlime on the 3 acres sown today just to give it a good start.

Waffletraktor wrote: »

Can you adjust the angle on your discs jimmy?
One issue with wbc is you'll have seeds there putting out plants/ weeds for the next few years if you go to back to grass

Disc's not adjustable as the gobsheen who owned it before us damaged it and welded the arms in position.
Yeah I take your point about weeds in the ground in future but will spray to deal with that down the line when going back to grass if necessary.

Phone out of power this eve so Ill stick up a pic tomorrow.

Strongly thinking about taking on 1000 acres of arable in East Anglia after today :rolleyes:

Edit; Kale actually got 2 bags of fert - i mixed the kale seed through a bag of fert to make it easier to spread with the wagtail.

sea12

serfspup wrote: »

you are allowed to graze off last years crop so why bother with roundup?
from my experience the best crop for wildbirds (finches)is redshank not on the list of approved seeds?

kale&wheat is a good mix and worth feeding to sheep in march/april

for fun mix in sunflower seed

Yea was thinking of kale and wheat myself and would come in handy next match with sheep to clean it up. Could you die that if it was ploughed with a spinner?

jimmy G M

sea12 wrote: »

Yea was thinking of kale and wheat myself and would come in handy next match with sheep to clean it up. Could you die that if it was ploughed with a spinner?

Is wheat approved as a mix?

Also you cant graze the Kale in Year 1 afaik as you have to leave it fior 2 years before re-sowing.

sea12

jimmy G M wrote: »

Is wheat approved as a mix?

Also you cant graze the Kale in Year 1 afaik as you have to leave it fior 2 years before re-sowing.

Ah thought it was too good to be true

steelbar

I put in an oats and linseed mix last year with no fert. It struck off well enough.
My plan is to run over it with the flail mower, then a run or 2 with the disc, will broadcast the seed using the contractors quad and roll it.
will prob go with a similar mix this year has i have some linseed left over, wont use any fert, as i am looking for keep costs down, and there are no medals for having a bumper crop, will just leave more to tidy up next year!

Farrell

steelbar wrote: »

I put in an oats and linseed mix last year with no fert. It struck off well enough.
My plan is to run over it with the flail mower, then a run or 2 with the disc, will broadcast the seed using the contractors quad and roll it.
will prob go with a similar mix this year has i have some linseed left over, wont use any fert, as i am looking for keep costs down, and there are no medals for having a bumper crop, will just leave more to tidy up next year!

If you don't add Fertilizer would it leave the ground hungrier

Danzy

Linseed is meant to be very good at bringing Phosphorous up out of the soils, meant to have deep rooting system as well.

I'm thinking to do a soil test when sowing in year 4 and then plan accordingly to fix for year 6.

serfspup

i was growing wbc in aeos,
oats and linseed was approved and kale.
didnt find oats much use for the birds so the next year i added wheat into the mix it did better the sun flowers was an accident with contaminated seed so I added that deliberately subsequently.

grazing off the crop was not permitted in aeos but is in glas this is a very possitive change much better environmentaly.
kale will still regrow after grazing in spring.

personally I think the wbc mixes are not that well thought out
more emphisis on adding insect attracting plants would be better.
so now i take the recomended mix and add
clover,
niger,
sunflowers,
poppys,
peas(dried marrowfats bought in the supermarket)

do not sow commercial mixed birdseed as may contain ambrosia a terrible weed

I should add that I am a birdwatcher so this is really a labour of love so if a little extra on seed it didn't bother me.not that it wasn't profitable anyway

Danzy

I am a bee keeper so there will be some accidental contamination with bee friendly species such as Borage.

Borage is itself quite a good forage for cattle as well.

I think there could have been a better selection in the WBC, more varieties included.

Water John

That's interesting lads. Since we are setting those seeds determined by the Dept, the addition of a few, ye would recommend, would cost little, only the seed.
Problem is oats, mainly feeds, crows and rats, if the crows haven't eaten before it grows. No problem with the linseed.

Danzy

I'm going for Linseed, it is aggressive to establish and that is important, worth F all for bees but that is not, also good for soil quality.

Hearing from a lot of people that the oats are a crow **** festival.

Dunedin

What's the deadline to sow wbc

Danzy

May 31st but given no one has head a jot from the Dept. about dates or maps or exact confirmation bar the letter of acceptance.

Username John

Dunedin wrote: »

What's the deadline to sow wbc

From GLAS 3 Spec

"Select a suitable parcel that is capable of establishing a wild bird cover crop by sowing a suitable seed mix as set out below, by 31st May 2017"

TPF2012

The deadline was extended by 2 weeks last year, to June 14th. I think you would be very unlucky to get an inspection before late summer.

sea12

TPF2012 wrote: »

The deadline was extended by 2 weeks last year, to June 14th. I think you would be very unlucky to get an inspection before late summer.

Hearing a few stories of it been full of rats during winter. Anyone have any experience of that. I presume that was oats/ barley they were in. Would kale and linseed work side by side?

Base price

TPF2012 wrote: »

The deadline was extended by 2 weeks last year, to June 14th. I think you would be very unlucky to get an inspection before late summer.

The deadline was extended because we had terrible wet weather up until then and many farmers could not till/sow wbc.

TPF2012

Base price wrote:

The deadline was extended because we had terrible wet weather up until then and many farmers could not till/sow wbc.

I was one of them farmers. We had 2 weeks without rain the end of May last year, only for that I would not have got it done.

Genghis Cant

sea12 wrote: »

Hearing a few stories of it been full of rats during winter. Anyone have any experience of that. I presume that was oats/ barley they were in. Would kale and linseed work side by side?

Linseed and Oats mix near the house here. It was a rat paradise over the winter. Unbelievable the holes and runs they made.

sea12

Genghis Cant wrote: »

Linseed and Oats mix near the house here. It was a rat paradise over the winter. Unbelievable the holes and runs they made.

Are you changing crop this year? If so what to? My bit is beside a neighbours house so don't want to bring that on him

Genghis Cant

sea12 wrote: »

Are you changing crop this year? If so what to? My bit is beside a neighbours house so don't want to bring that on him

The bit beside me is the neighbours. It's 300m from the house so near but fat enough too. I was plagued with rats here. I trapped, shot and poisoned them till I got them under control.
I've no idea will he change crop. I'll let ya know if I find out.

Dunedin

Genghis Cant wrote: »

Linseed and Oats mix near the house here. It was a rat paradise over the winter. Unbelievable the holes and runs they made.

What would be the best option to minimise the rats

Danzy

The Oat fields are meant to be a terror for them, I haven;t heard the same about things like triticale but maybe I just have not heard.

The part time boy

My field along a house that's rented to travellers.

So yer saying oats is the best crop

Birdnuts

Danzy wrote: »

The Oat fields are meant to be a terror for them, I haven;t heard the same about things like triticale but maybe I just have not heard.

An obvious approach would be to sow the WBC as far away from habitation/buildings as possible and let the likes of owls,kestrels and stoats etc. deal with the rats. That has been my approach and one of my neighbours(same type of GLAS plan) reckons the rats have moved into the WBC and away from the yard/sheds.

Danzy

Birdnuts wrote: »

An obvious approach would be to sow the WBC as far away from habitation/buildings as possible and let the likes of owls,kestrels and stoats etc. deal with the rats. That has been my approach and one of my neighbours(same type of GLAS plan) reckons the rats have moved into the WBC and away from the yard/sheds.

Nature will find a balance.