Case Study: Harvesting Serradella Seed/Pod
- ASHEEP
- Aug 31, 2018
- 4 min read
Article by ASHEEP
Scott & Odile Welke farm at Cascade as part of the larger Welke family business. Scott is known to grow a great serradella crop and has fine tuned his harvesting process. Here Scott will let us in on how he goes about it.
Farm Business Name– Welke Bros
Location– Cascades
Farm Size– 150,000ha
Average rainfall-400ml
Soil type & pH– Sand over gravel duplex and deep sand, pH 5-5.5 through to Mallee pH 6.5-8 (the high pH areas are not serradella country)
Current enterprises– Wheat, Barley, Canola, Vetch and 8,000 merino ewes
Typical rotation– We don’t have a typical rotation but common one is wheat, barley, vetch or serradella
Stocking rate– 8,000 ewes and lambs, plus 1,800 hoggets on 2,800 winter grazed area so approx. 3.5 head/ha or 6 DSE/ha
Can you describe your pasture program?
Every year 2,000 ha of vetch or serradella is sown as improved pasture. Generally the serradella is sown as early as possible (late summer/early autumn) if there is moisture but we will go in dry from mid March onwards. This year serradella was sown in February. The idea with this is to get it out of the way before cropping starts, to get maximum growth and to give it an equal footing with weeds.
Do you manage serradella that you are going to harvest for seed differently compared to your other pastures?
Any serradella paddocks that are planned to be harvested are grazed normally early on. Usually they get grazed twice and then locked up from the end of July onwards. Weed control is typically a pre-emergent application of spinnaker or raptor post-emergent along with grazing. This year a litre of jaguar was used post emergent to get the broadleaf weeds so it will be interesting to see how that affects seed set. Grass control is easy with a select/verdict brew used.
Generally the serradella is seeded into a barley stubble so sowing can happen early without the risk of blowing. That way there is also a bonus of early feed from volunteers. Serradella is seeded shallow, similar depth to Canola, and banded with 20kg MAP under the seed and Alsoca granule is applied using a separate bin.
Reg Legged Earth Mites and Aphids have not been a problem. For seed crops a spray is applied for Bud Worm when they are around, usually in late September. This is more important for French than Santorini. It’s a good idea to use a sweep net to monitor bud worm numbers when the serradella is podding as they can decimate a seed crop if left, especially in French varieties.
How do you determine if a serradella paddock will yield enough to be worth harvesting?
The decision is based on how desperate we are for seed. Even heavily grazed paddocks will set good seed but you may have to use a clover harvester to get it. If there is enough vine to get lifters under, similar to peas, then you should be right.
How do you determine the right time to harvest the serradella?
The right time to harvest is when it is ripe and that is when you are usually busy with other crops! The later you leave it the more the plants will drop to the ground and the harder it is to pick them up with the header. I’ve had success with swathing 75-80 senesced and then picking up the windrows at the end of harvest. The dryer the serradella seed is the better so I try to pick hot days to harvest it.
Do you desiccate before harvesting?
I do more of a spray top for Santorini rather than a desiccation as it needs to be super dry to harvest. The spray top is more for weed management. If there are no weeds it can be left to ripen on its own. I generally don’t harvest until close to Christmas but if we want to harvest French serradella early than we desiccate it at 75% senesced.
How do you set up your header to harvest the serradella?
The settings we use for French Serradella are pretty much the same as Canola. For Santorini we use minimal concave clearance and we generally still can’t break up the pod with that setting. Every header is different so it is hard to pick a definite setting. You will need to muck around with your own machine. The main thing is the seed is bullet proof so go hard. One thing to be careful of is filling the box too much if the pods are still intact or you’ll have a lot of shovelling to do (think the barrel of monkeys game).
Do you get the seed scarified at cleaning or keep as pod?
I scarify most of the Santorini but keep French as pod for summer sowing (Margurita) or Autumn sowing (Cadiz).
