🌿 Caraway
A perennial special crop. No yield in the sowing year. Not after Sclerotinia hosts.
Sowing
Trans Farm: the sowing window is long because there is no yield in the sowing year. The soil should be moist enough. Caraway emerges slowly, about 10–20 days. Work the seedbed shallow.
Soil and parcel
Trans Farm: the best yields are on mineral soils. A suitable pH range is 6.0–6.5. Control mayweed and couch grass in the preceding crop.
Fertilising
Fertilising is in the contract-growing guide. No fertiliser kilos are copied here, so a figure does not drift away from that guide.
Yield and harvest
Yield starts in the years after sowing. Trans Farm: one sowing can give several harvests, and the establishment cost is spread over them.
🔄 In the rotation
- Role
- A strong root and a good preceding-crop value for cereals. It lowers cereal disease pressure (Trans Farm).
- Good preceding crop
- Good preceding crops: potato, root crops and spring cereals. Winter cereals only with caution. Not turnip rape, oilseed rape, pea, hemp or faba bean (Sclerotinia).
- Good following crop
- After caraway keep at least 2–4 break years and grow crops that Sclerotinia does not trouble. The sclerotia stay viable in soil for 3–5 years (Trans Farm).
- Gap on the same parcel
- Trans Farm: a 3–5 year cycle. Continuous caraway on the same parcel is not recommended.
Other crops
Sources
- Luke: Kuminan viljely
- Trans Farm: Kuminan viljelyopas – kylvöä ennakoivat toimenpiteet
- VYR: Rukiin viljelyopas – kylvö, esikasvit, lannoitus
Links open public guides. Always check your own contract and parcel advice.
General rotation advice – not a substitute for advice, a contract or the law. Figures come from the sources, not from invention.