Case Study: Belter, Hertfordshire –Spring barley at the centre of black-grass control

Spring barley is an important part of the black-grass management strategy at Vine Farm, Wendy near Royston in Hertfordshire.

“The reason we introduced spring barley into the rotation was very much about black-grass,” says farm manager Tim Whitehead. “Ten years ago, we would be starting to drill wheat on September 10, and we ended up with black-grass literally out of control on the farm.”

Plans to tackle the problem included delaying drilling into early October and introducing 100-150 hectares of spring barley into the cropping plan, predominantly where the black-grass was at its worst.

“In some situations, we were growing two spring barleys in a row, just to get a little bit more control and get on top of the problem. It has definitely helped; we still have black-grass on the farm, but I would say it’s now being managed,” says Tim.

In fact, spring barley has assumed the role of break crop on the farm’s heavy St Lawrence series clay loam soils, in a very simple spring barley – wheat rotation.

“Everyone’s looking for the perfect break crop, but no-one’s really come up with one yet. Oilseed rape is risky, sugar beet is great but can be hard on the soil in the wrong year.

“I am growing spring barley after wheat as a semi-break crop and so far, it’s been fairly successful,” says Tim. “Our wheat is not yielding as well as a first wheat, but it’s doing better than a second wheat.”

Each year around 40ha of the spring barley crop at Vine Farm, which is managed by Velcourt on behalf of the Wentzel family, is grown for seed, with the remainder grown for malting. Planet has been the variety of choice in recent seasons.

“We’re aiming for malting and we’re getting a malting premium probably three years out of four,” adds Tim.

With an early-mid March drilling date the target, land destined for spring barley is ploughed and subsoiled in the autumn, with the aim of setting up enough of a seedbed for the drill to go straight in in the spring.

Weed control is done pre-drilling with an application of glyphosate.

“We don’t put on any pre-emergence herbicides. I find they can be hard on the crop and reduce the competitiveness to black-grass, so you end up with a worse problem rather than better control.”

When it comes to crop nutrition, experience suggests the sweet spot for meeting a malting nitrogen specification is around 100kg/ha N, typically applied in the seedbed.

Rhynchosporium is the main disease threat, with net blotch and mildew rarely seen, so disease control may often be achieved with one well-timed fungicide – usually prothioconazole-based – applied around GS33. 

“If the season is a little bit more drawn out and disease pressure comes in a little bit earlier, we’ll be looking at GS32 and GS39 fungicides,” adds Tim.

A similar approach was taken with the Belter seed crop, with the exception of an additional 50kg/ha N and slightly more robust growth regulation.

“The Belter was certainly more robust than the Planet. There was noticeably less disease in it. We did put more growth regulation into it, but that was probably more of an insurance and in hindsight we could probably have reduced it to similar amounts to what the Planet had, bearing in mind that the Belter had 50 kg/ha more nitrogen.”

At harvest the Belter yielded at some 0.5t/ha more than the Planet, producing around 300t from 40ha.

Given the importance of spring barley at Vine Farm, Tim keeps a close eye on variety developments.

“Belter is undoubtedly a variety of interest. Those yield figures speak for themselves. We generally budget around 6.6t/ha for Planet; the Belter yielded 7.5-8t/ha.

“There’s no doubt that breeding in spring barley has moved forward a long way, it’s frustrating that the maltsters are just dragging their heels a little bit,” he says.