Farmer Writes: phacelia is to cover crops as Fendt is to tractors

“Do sheep eat phacelia,” I asked Chris in Drummonds. I had no particular reason to think Chris was an expert on ovine nutritional preferences but I knew he’d have some idea – more than me at any rate.

“I wouldn’t think so – it’s sour and stemmy auld stuff,” Chris replied. Max, when I asked him, said “sure when sheep will eat their way through a hedge, phacelia should be a treat”.

So what’s this new-found interest in the diet of sheep, I hear you ask, why not leave the sheep in the capable hands of Brian Nicholson?

You may recall we left a field fallow to carry out much-needed drainage work over the summer. That’s been completed and with the recent rain, the desert was starting to bloom again so it was time to sow a GLAS cover crop and ideally one which sheep might graze.

Now, we don’t have any sheep but a friend of mine does, from whom I might extract a modest pocketful of euro (without putting too fine a point on it) for the privilege of some nice grazing.

But my quandary was that I already had some expensive GLAS cover crop seed in store – for reasons I’m not prepared to go into – and I’d exactly enough to sow this 10ha field. The seed mixture per hectare was 5kg of leafy turnip (which the sheep will adore) and 2kg of phacelia (which I think the sheep will adore, Brendan take note). Phacelia is to cover crops as Fendt is to tractors.

As Max will tell you, I’m not the world’s greatest fan of cover crops as I dislike the expense and hassle of sowing a crop which is not taken to a financial harvest. Grazing the crop with sheep eases my discomfort but, against that, the sheep create more compaction in a cover crop situation than you might think.

I’m well aware that cover crops are now seen as the missing link and the key to soil goodness and sustainability including trapping free nutrients which may well be lost. Additionally they are also seen as essential to soil health and one of the building blocks for restoring soil organic matter levels. But the ideal cover crop seed mix is dirt cheap (like oats alone) but GLAS doesn’t allow this. Also it can be difficult to select a cover crop species that doesn’t prejudice your rotation.

However, incorporating the residue from a rape or bean crop every few years and factoring in some farmyard manure or other organic waste will also greatly increase soil organic matter.

Anyhow, I’m not a fan and think cover crops are like a chipped John Deere – overrated. And once you burn off a cover crop, like phacelia, there’s often precious little left in the way of plant matter. That’s why sheep grazing is essential to get the most from them.

Low moisture

The oilseed rape came off at low moisture with a pleasing, but not exceptional, yield average of 1.83t/ac. We made a start on the wheat on 4 August, a week earlier than usual. I’d been quietly optimistic that wheat would also yield well but my optimism was ill-founded once the wheels started rolling.

The view from the combine cab highlighted crops which weren’t thick enough, a legacy of the sowing conditions last autumn. Ears are too short and consequently both grain and straw are scarce. We haven’t cut any first wheats yet but the second wheats are coming in at an average of just 3.30t/ac at 18% moisture.