Strategy incorporating Oilseed Radish

paul_c
Posts: 414
Joined: Thu Nov 25, 2021 4:13 pm

Strategy incorporating Oilseed Radish

Post by paul_c »

I've heard of catch crops but no practical experience.

My rotation is:

Wheat inc straw, then plough
Barley inc straw
Corn (or Sunflowers)
OSR (Canola), then plough
Wheat
Soybeans

I am trying out planting Oilseed Radish in June after the Barley harvest is gathered including big baling straw and removing it from the field. I have one of those all-singing-all-dancing drills (a Terrasem C6F) which can disc, fert and seed. I am guessing, because its Oilseed Radish there is no point whatsoever in putting fert into the drill too, to be applied with it? And that come March/April when the Corn (or Sunflowers) are planted, I can simply disc over the Oilseed Radish (AND include my fert this time, for a 100% fert due to the 50% already there from the catch crop), I don't need to mulch or plough at this point. In fact, would ploughing wipe out the benefit?
FarmerJohn89
Posts: 418
Joined: Mon Oct 06, 2014 8:42 pm

Re: Strategy incorporating Oilseed Radish

Post by FarmerJohn89 »

It's worth mulching the oilseed radish as just mulching gives you a yield boost and so does rolling even if there isn't stones.
So I'd mulch sow and roll that should get you to 100% fert
And if you need to plough you can do that after you mulch it won't remove the fertiliser level.
And lime as well before sowing...
paul_c
Posts: 414
Joined: Thu Nov 25, 2021 4:13 pm

Re: Strategy incorporating Oilseed Radish

Post by paul_c »

Lime is every 3 years? I don't actually own a lime spreader, frustratingly the smaller solid fert spreaders don't do lime (in the game) and the bigger ones, are a bit superfluous what with the combi drill and a sprayer tractor too (which is kept busy on extra contract work and a brilliant investment).

On the one hand, it may be worth evenly distributing the lime spreading requirement throughout the rotation, on the other hand there is a small equipment lease cost saving (but a busy summer period) if I deliberately align them all to need liming on 1 year out of 3.
Shintai
Posts: 160
Joined: Sun Jun 20, 2021 8:03 pm
Location: DK

Re: Strategy incorporating Oilseed Radish

Post by Shintai »

Problem is this is not seasons from FS19. Its a vastly downgraded version. Maybe this changes with the precision mod? Who knows. So crop rotation adds nothing and you have fixed static requirements.
So always plow after the 4 crops that require it, always lime every 3 years.

A cultivator with a APV seeder or similar seems to work well in terms of saving a run there and its cheaper than fertilizer.
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