Flea Beetle Prevention

[pigeon controller]

I recently heared that farmers were drilling rape then redrilling buckwheat or clover when the Flea Bettle infect the second drilling spay it off and let the rape come through.

Is this feasible or total Rowlocks.

over the the Framing Massive

[clangerman]

two of my perms drilled buckwheat in with the rape this year but I thought it was cover for the rape to get away maybe it was for beetle control had a lot of pigeons eating the buckwheat seed later on so a good crop to have 

[motty]

I don't know the answer, but I do know that I will have very little rape to shoot this year. Another 4 of my farmers are giving up growing it.

[Manymissedpigeon]

The trouble seems to be, since the ban on neo nicatoids, the only way to control the ‘flea beetle’ ( which usually flies out of nearly every hedge on August bank holiday Monday or so my farmers tell me) then the osr needs spraying with alternative products, not once, or twice but up to five sprayingings. If not the beetle eats the leaf in the late autumn/early winter, lays its eggs which transform into larvae which then travel down the inside of the ‘shoot’. This supposedly causes the osr plant to send out side shoots which don’t flower, don’t get pollinated by the spiders and other ,nice, insects and causes a massive drop in the yield per acre

Or so I’m told

[mossy835]

looks like i will have no rape to shoot over in the winter.

[Free range Rob]

Flea beetle is a right royal pain in the **** and can wreck a crop very rapid.

a lot of my farming friends have either given up on it or cut right back, on a brighter note, when we get a hard winter with less natural food about, anyone with osr on thier perms will be bagging up.