Any no till vs till yield comparisons about?

Clive said:

Yes winter barley yields

Notill after osr 10.89t/ha. Cultivated (after potatoes) 8.2t/ha

Every thing else the same, next door fields

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What was the cropping prior to the osr on the no till bit? and did you cover crop going into the no till barley?

Could the reduction in yield after spuds be down to soil damage rather than the no till vs min till debate?

Clive said:

Was wheat pre osr and the potatoes

Soil damage is the no-till vs min till debate - tillage damages soil structure

The potato land was cleared and cultivated in good conditions and has no evidence of compaction even now, it just lacked structure to cope with a wet winter compared to the zero-till field

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Ok so had it not had a potato crop on it and it was min tilled as normal would be a better comparison.

Obviously root crops and no till will never work due to the movement of soil required to grow the root crop.

SilliamWhale said:

But lots of people claim the best combinables come after spuds?

I never used to find it the case though.

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We now rarely plant wheat after potatoes. End rigs etc usually take too big a hammering and the recent wet autumns mean that often any seedbed can turn to skitter. Take advantage of the winter to level it off and plough it properly(is the "p" word allowed on this thread!) Would rather go for high N spring barley to get the good of any residual fertility.

This is not no-till, but we have the result of a plough established field of Oats, compared to a Claydon drilled field of oats. Our trials are not very scientific because they are just whole fields established by a particular method. Result for the oats (combine figures) were 8.4t/ha for Claydon drilled, and 8.8t/ha for plough based establishment. For me, the Claydon wins that one because my Gatekeeper figures read £87/ha Claydon establishment cost. £219/ha plough based establishment cost.

I'll have the two fields I no-tilled and some normal plough based fields about 600m away although pretty similar soil. No same field comparisons unfortunately. No till and ploughed fields are the same variety and drilled at the same time. Same fertiliser and spray programme too.

It won't be very fair on the plough-based system because it was behind beans which were harvested in mid-September and had to be turned round quickly.

I've shown this before but here are the two comparisons:




I've had to eat my hat slightly after refusing to personally maschio the field because the cultivated field now looks like a cracking crop. This winter seemed to be very kind upon crops drilled into poor seedbeds. Also, Atlantis has achieved an almost complete kill meaning there's hardly a black-grass plant in sight too - amazing given the field was terrible last year. No-till field looks very good too.

There are some other fields on this farm behind rape which were ploughed early and drilled slightly earlier to compare to as well. Same variety though.

With wheat harvest finished, we have now got some whole field comparisons. Diego ploughed 1ww after osr 9.4t/ha. Same situation but dd Claydon 10.56t/ha.
Cordiale all after Oats.
Dd Claydon 9.49t/ha.
Tillso subsoiled and Claydon drilled
9.83t/ha. Another field same treatment did 10.06t/ha.
Tillso subsoiled and Amazone RPAD drilled 10.62t/ha.
Ploughed levelled and Claydon drilled 10.28t/ha.
Only seems to show that there is little difference in yield between varying methods. What seems to be more important is good establishment and good weed control throughout the season.

Feldspar said:

I'll have the two fields I no-tilled and some normal plough based fields about 600m away although pretty similar soil. No same field comparisons unfortunately. No till and ploughed fields are the same variety and drilled at the same time. Same fertiliser and spray programme too.

It won't be very fair on the plough-based system because it was behind beans which were harvested in mid-September and had to be turned round quickly.

I've shown this before but here are the two comparisons:

View attachment 60568
View attachment 60569

I've had to eat my hat slightly after refusing to personally maschio the field because the cultivated field now looks like a cracking crop. This winter seemed to be very kind upon crops drilled into poor seedbeds. Also, Atlantis has achieved an almost complete kill meaning there's hardly a black-grass plant in sight too - amazing given the field was terrible last year. No-till field looks very good too.

There are some other fields on this farm behind rape which were ploughed early and drilled slightly earlier to compare to as well. Same variety though.

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Had a fairly good comparison today. JB Diego drilled into ploughed, pressed and maschioed seedbeds at the beginning of October. No till Diego drilled at the same time with a demo 750a. Same spray programme on both (with one field having much later Atlantis), same fert and same harvesting date, both behind beans (although the cultivated block winter an the other spring with the winters being drilled in poor conditions). See pictures in the above post for an idea of what the fields looked like at drilling.

With the exception of the one field that had late Atlantis I would certainly say at the very least that the no-till fields did as well as the ploughed stuff. It should be noted that the cultivated fields where ploughed in September and turned around fast and not drilled in amazing conditions. It is possible, however, to give some context because on the same farm we had JB Diego ploughed, cultivated and drilled in good conditions a few weeks earlier behind rape.

Looking back at the telemetry I would say the spot rates in the middle of the runs (which is pretty representative of most of the field because yields have been good from edge to egdge this year by and large) in the late ploughed stuff were in the 9.5-12 t/ha range most of the time. In the no-till fields it was in the 11.5 -12.5 t/ha range. The early ploughed stuff was probably 11-13 t/ha with more data points at the top end of this range than the no-till field (although this block had better soil). We think our yield meter is reading about 5-15% high but the relative comparison still holds.

What was amazing was two fields which were Claydoned a month later than everything else into really really wet conditions (nearly got the quad bike stuck putting slugs pellets on), no pre-ems, more black-grass than everywhere else, and yet apart from where the slugs had areas the crop was yielding just as well as everything else. Crazy year for wheat.

I have to say having drilled the no-till fields myself and having listened to the nay-sayers it's a pretty good feeling to see the grain coming off so well and to have proved them wrong. I also love the fact that even though we sprayed the no-till fields in fairly damp conditions there was not a rut to be found and the combine hardly left a mark.

Clive said:

kind of understandable when it comes to the Ag media and supply / machinery trade but you would like to think better of those funded by us, sadly not it seems as they have money and jobs to protect as well

my attitude is shifting recently, I think people like you and me should shut up more and keep this advantage to ourselves !

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I agree. If you can grow crops with a lower establishment cost than everyone else then keep quiet about it.

If everyone starts saving money with no-till then the grain price will drop (even further) accordingly.