25th October
Spraying of volunteers
The Event site was established with minimum tillage and therefore experienced some problems with volunteers from the previous wheat and spring barley cropping.
This has been a common problem this season. Over time control will be an increased problem with the loss of the herbicide active ingredient ethofumesate from 28th Feb 2008.
This issue was raised by the RASE's agronomist Phil Merchant of Agrovista, the event's agrochemical supplier.
As far as establishing the grassland site, it was drilled on and around the 12th September into what was a dry seedbed. It had been dry before drilling and as a result we had had little or no germination of volunteer barley to control pre planting. As a result of this when the grass established itself so did a heavy population of volunteer barley which began to compete with the grass.
Subsequently on the 25th October Phil organized for an application of a herbicide mixture of 5 litres/ha Leyclene and 5 litres/ha Kubist 2 containing ethofumesate.
If these conditions were repeated in subsequent years this would become a real issue as on the 28th February 2008 Ethofumesate losses its recommendation for application to new sown leys and rotational/permanent grassland. Some brands of ethofumesate will keep a label for application to grass seed crops only. Without this chemistry to help us we could be limited to cultural control means only e.g. sheep grazing.
