On the left is what the triticale looks like almost everywhere on the field. On the right is what it looks like in one smallish patch Her Outdoors dug over for some other crops last year. The difference in potential yield (we're not counting our grain until it's bagged) is almost unbelievable.
9 comments:
Am interested that your growing triticale in ECOvallee !
Your growing it buts what's your thoughts on it. Some would say it's not that far removed from pure GM ? ( which is rubbish ) would have thought spelt would be more your thing.
It was a supply and demand thing. Her Outdoors couldn't get hold of ANY organic seed and we had to settle for the best available substitute. The pigs aren't even very keen on triticale, but they'll just have to get used to it. Apparently the straw is good for the horse, too, so our animal feed bill should be hugely reduced this year.
As you may know you can mill it and bake bread etc with it, or roll it and feed in very small amounts to the horse
But the chickens and Ducks Geese will love it
Would think its a good rough all rounder
You will have to look out for a hand powered rolling mill
All grain is as you know very expensive at the moment so should be a big saving think of all the eggs
There's always a bright side
Just paid over £ 6 for 25 kg of wheat for chickens !
But how you going to harvest it and store ? That's an interesting project in its self
Regards Arch
Six quid's not bad. We're paying €12 or more for rolled barley, €11 for corn and about the same for wheat. But with peak oil everything's set to double over the next few years anyway - smallholding is definitely the future.
Which is also why we're harvesting with scythes. Just ordered a peening jig so we can get the blades super sharp. When labour is cheap and plentiful again, life will be easier. But until then it's down to us...
Laura and I have interpreted this differently. Is the crop on the previously ploughed soil greater or smaller than that on the unploughed land?
Greater in what sense. It was an area I oversowed, but that may be coincidental...
Alex and Laura: the crop on the previously dug ground is much smaller. To me it looks like the digging over the previous year really reduced the nutritional value of the soil to make it almost unusable. And because of limited time we did not sow a green manure or cover crop to protect or replenish the ground.
I have undersown the triticale with clover which is looking happy, providing nitrogen and hopefully once the crop is cut it will remain as ground cover for the soil. But it's all part of that BIG learning curve about throwing yourself in the deep end! An endless education.
Thank you H.O./C
Organic seed !
What's your thoughts on this ?
Pay inflated prices for ' organic ' seed or just by non organic seed or plugs or whatever and then grow on in than organic manner !
And then theres seed grain again high cost compared to feed gain, feed gain will grow, on a small scale worth the risk, throw a 25k bag of Barley in and beer for the year ?
Same goes for wheat , bread for the year , rape bio fuel for the year well sort of you won't be going far ?
Same thing true re potatoes Even supermarket eggs will often hatch.
It's ok if you have bags of money to throw at organic stock but if you grow on as organic then the following year if you keep seed back it's getting purer at you go
Disease in non hardy stock I hear you shout !
Well suck it and see ?
Would be interested to hear your thoughts
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