When you are going to purchase your cover crop seed, the first thing you need to specify is that you want seed with a higher voluntary standard (HVS) label from the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine.
HVS seed has been tested for wild oats, brome and blackgrass by an International Seed Testing Association-approved lab.
Once this label is on the bag, it means that the sample has been certified as being free of these weeds.
The label will say it has been tested for these weeds and will have a green Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine label.
Ireland has high seed standards and some in the trade are implementing this to protect Irish farmers, so farmers should use this seed.
One thing you don’t want to do when you are growing cover crops is to plant weed seeds on your farm, especially seeds such as blackgrass and brome.
Cover crops
You may remember an article we did last November where blackgrass, wild oats, brome, Italian ryegrass and other weed seeds were found in cover crops seeds.
After this, many more farmers came to the Irish Farmers Journal to say they had found seed with other seeds in it and grass seeds.
When purchasing seed in the co-op or merchants do not go in and ask for cover crop seed, ask for HVS cover crop seed.
To hear more on catch crops from sowing date and method to cropping choices and seed availability, you can tune into Goldcrop’s Dave Barry on this week’s Tillage Podcast.
SHARING OPTIONS