Cross Slot drilling into Rye covercrop

Feldspar · Sep 12, 2014

Simon C said:
Definitely dryer under stripped straw but the losses are just too disheartening. Think we need to play around with varieties and find one that is difficult to thrash, like some spring wheats where it works well.

Barley is meant to be OK isn't it? If you grow linseed, barley, some spring wheat (like hard red spring wheat?) and maybe some peas then that's quite a bit to use it on even if winter wheat doesn't work.

Clive · Sep 12, 2014

Feldspar said:
Barley is meant to be OK isn't it? If you grow linseed, barley, some spring wheat (like hard red spring wheat?) and maybe some peas then that's quite a bit to use it on even if winter wheat doesn't work.

Much as I would love a stripper to work well they just don't in so many situations

Even peas and linseed was better cut with a normal header when it would go well, the stripper only came into its own when things got tricky but always at the expense of losses, we used to swap headers in the day to conventional and then strip at night etc

The idea is great but the machinery just isn't good enough for uk crops yet - maybe it's a design deserving of and due some development, it would be the holly grail for zero-til if you could strip without loss

martian · Sep 12, 2014

Feldspar said:
No, I think zero till can work, but the soil needs to be exposed to the sun and wind to dry and become friable in complete opposition to what most no-till people say (think No-till Bill actually left his soil completely bare IIRC - @martian ?). Creating mats of residue is not an option (even though they do appear to work very well at suppressing weeds - no black-grass germinating in this field at all where there's cover). Also a range of establishment techniques is important.

I think you are right about No-Till Bill, but he only gets 6 inches of rain a year, so his problem is the opposite one of trying to conserve moisture. Thin crops too, compared to the UK, so not much residue anyway

combineguy · Sep 14, 2014

Feldspar said:
It was going to be the "whether the CS gives better establishment" debate. Have slightly strayed to far in this direction as it is.

We always seem to end up with the what drill question. I think this situation is not really to do with the drill, it's the cover. That's what I'm going to try and think about addressing. Unfortunately too late to bale fields that are destined for spring barley as an experiment.

Is this the time when I pipe up saying CS .....

Feldspar · Sep 14, 2014

Simon C said:
Sorry, only just catching up with this thread.

@Feldspar your experience and conclusions with cover crops are exactly the same as mine, just that I am a year or two ahead of you so I have the stripper header already. I have felt a bit of a lone voice but perhaps it is just an East Anglian problem although I don't see why we should be any different, we are dryer than everyone else as well.

I even hate crop residue hanging around for too long and love going round with the straw rake to speed up it's decomposition by getting a bit of soil mixed with it. I don't think raking kills many slugs, but it sure does disrupt their favorite habitat which is under wet lumps of straw. Raking dries out the straw and soil surface and fills any small cracks that they like climbing in and out of so have nowhere left to live.

Just out of interest, how do you think your soil would drill / react if you went into a wheat - fallow rotation like Dockers. Do you think it would be much more difficult to drill (i.e. wetter, lifeless etc.) than in your current system? I'm curious whether this type of rotation works better on heavy or light soil or whether it doesn't matter.

Simon C · Sep 14, 2014

Feldspar said:
Just out of interest, how do you think your soil would drill / react if you went into a wheat - fallow rotation like Dockers. Do you think it would be much more difficult to drill (i.e. wetter, lifeless etc.) than in your current system? I'm curious whether this type of rotation works better on heavy or light soil or whether it doesn't matter.

Interesting. The obvious answer is that it would be wrong not having anything growing for such a long time however I am now finding that the natural soil structure that nature has built up over seven years of no-till is pretty well indestructible. I have said before on here, even where a foot of water stands all winter in hollows on the marshes, once that water has gone in the Spring it is no different to the rest of the field. I drill peas which are very compaction intolerant, and you cannot see where the water was in the crop. That to me proves that the weight carrying capability would not be lost without a crop but I'm not sure about the surface crumb. I do find that the soil is better to drill into after linseed than say, peas, so maybe no crop at all would be even worse. I don't know, no doubt @Dockers would have an opinion.

SilliamWhale · Sep 14, 2014

Simon C said:
Interesting. The obvious answer is that it would be wrong not having anything growing for such a long time however I am now finding that the natural soil structure that nature has built up over seven years of no-till is pretty well indestructible. I have said before on here, even where a foot of water stands all winter in hollows on the marshes, once that water has gone in the Spring it is no different to the rest of the field. I drill peas which are very compaction intolerant, and you cannot see where the water was in the crop. That to me proves that the weight carrying capability would not be lost without a crop but I'm not sure about the surface crumb. I do find that the soil is better to drill into after linseed than say, peas, so maybe no crop at all would be even worse. I don't know, no doubt @Dockers would have an opinion.

The problem with it is that fallow means a possible overuse of roundup to keep it clean and an ingress of weeds you could do without and bring in no money.

Badshot · Sep 14, 2014

SilliamWhale said:
The problem with it is that fallow means a possible overuse of roundup to keep it clean and an ingress of weeds you could do without and bring in no money.

I think Dockers has someone running sheep over it now.

Feldspar · Sep 14, 2014

SilliamWhale said:
The problem with it is that fallow means a possible overuse of roundup to keep it clean and an ingress of weeds you could do without and bring in no money.

I worry about the overuse of round up but diquat doesn't seem to have been much more expensive than glyphosate @ 3l/ha this harvest. Also can use things like Falcon to clean up volunteers if they are getting out of hand too early in the year.

SilliamWhale · Sep 14, 2014

Feldspar said:
I worry about the overuse of round up but diquat doesn't seem to have been much more expensive than glyphosate @ 3l/ha this harvest. Also can use things like Falcon to clean up volunteers if they are getting out of hand too early in the year.

I guess so. It has to come out of your wheat budget though!

I don't like fallow really, I can see the arguments for it but I also think we should be able to find better ways to keep things growing too.

Feldspar · Sep 14, 2014

SilliamWhale said:
I guess so. It has to come out of your wheat budget though!

I don't like fallow really, I can see the arguments for it but I also think we should be able to find better ways to keep things growing too.

Problem is things like spring beans haven't been doing anywhere near enough to control black-grass. They have made the problem worse rather than better in a lot of places. Rape is looking less attractive too (massive black-grass problem already in rape so cue Centurion Max, Crawler and Kerb - what fun).

I was just thinking through a hypothetical scenario where one aimed for seriously low fixed costs (say well below 100 £/ac) and was thinking about cropping to suit that system.

SilliamWhale · Sep 14, 2014

Feldspar said:
Problem is things like spring beans haven't been doing anywhere near enough to control black-grass. They have made the problem worse rather than better in a lot of places. Rape is looking less attractive too (massive black-grass problem already in rape so cue Centurion Max, Crawler and Kerb - what fun).

I was just thinking through a hypothetical scenario where one aimed for seriously low fixed costs (say well below 100 £/ac) and was thinking about cropping to suit that system.

your thinking like an arable farmer, not a farmer

Feldspar · Sep 14, 2014

SilliamWhale said:
your thinking like an arable farmer, not a farmer

Difficult not to given my experience with livestock!

SilliamWhale · Sep 14, 2014

Feldspar said:
Difficult not to given my experience with livestock!

You like looking at the wider view of things, do you think blackgrass is a predictable weed issue, or indeed do you think all weeds are predictable?

You see, I do. I think any weed "problem" from japanese knotweed, to bracken, or in fact any invasive species or dominant animal species (native or imported) is totally predictable and the more I look at any weed problem (on my own place as well) I wonder why I'm surprised that I'm surprised about it!

Feldspar · Sep 14, 2014

SilliamWhale said:
You like looking at the wider view of things, do you think blackgrass is a predictable weed issue, or indeed do you think all weeds are predictable?

You see, I do. I think any weed "problem" from japanese knotweed, to bracken, or in fact any invasive species or dominant animal species (native or imported) is totally predictable and the more I look at any weed problem (on my own place as well) I wonder why I'm surprised that I'm surprised about it!

I'm not surprised by the weed problems that we have. The key question is what to do so that the problems no longer occur. It's nice to paint a picture where the causes of the weed are just stopped in an instant with no other effects. Problem is that means often hitting profitability more than is acceptable. Take for example my black-grass straw mat I mentioned earlier. Very good at suppressing weeds but also rather good at making it very difficult to get a cash crop established.

BSH · Sep 15, 2014

I think if you were planning a system of fallow on alternate years, you would need to consider putting in a summer cover crop (like @Clive put in behind his failed soya) and take a view on the costs associated in terms of future savings on inputs or use someone else's livestock for a rent to eat it.

dug · Sep 15, 2014

Not familiar with soils where @Fieldspar is, but is it possible that subsurface drainage (ie pipes and moling) are required?
I m on west coast north Island Nz where we range from sands to heavy soils. My own little farm is heavy fine textured soil with impervious clay subsoil. We have come from no drains to now being quite well drained and this issue of
Residue cover preventing drying doesn't seem to happen.

dontknowanything · Sep 15, 2014

dug said:
Not familiar with soils where @Fieldspar is, but is it possible that subsurface drainage (ie pipes and moling) are required?
I m on west coast north Island Nz where we range from sands to heavy soils. My own little farm is heavy fine textured soil with impervious clay subsoil. We have come from no drains to now being quite well drained and this issue of
Residue cover preventing drying doesn't seem to happen.

Something I found amusing travelling NZ was everyone (literally) telling me they farmed heavy soil. I can tell you it's nothing like what @Feldspar would call heavy

Feldspar · Sep 15, 2014

dontknowanything said:
Something I found amusing travelling NZ was everyone (literally) telling me they farmed heavy soil. I can tell you it's nothing like what @Feldspar would call heavy

Had an interesting morning today wandering around with a soil chap (ex ADAS drainage specialist). Free from CSF so thought why not. Dug some soil pits on a few fields that were interesting. One I thought had a plough pan (turned out it didn't); the other was my cover crop field (some roots but not exactly a root mass) and so on. He said that our Handslope series chalk boulder clay was very well structured (and was ideal for direct drilling). Given that it's been ploughed every year for however long this was mildly surprising. He said our no-till field was in worse condition (although this was a slightly different soil type - Falk... something something) with more horizontal fracturing in the top 6 inches. Nothing major though and he said it needed more time to convert.

He said that these soil types should have mole drains over tile drains (which we do have) and made it clear that this would need to carry on if no-tilling. I said that a lot of farmers like to think that they have heavy land and what was the worst type of clay soil. He said that our clays were some of the few that were grade 2 in places and were actually some of the nicer clays producing some of the more consistent yields. He said some of the worst were in Warickshire - Evesham series I think he called them - with very poorly unstable and impermeable subsoil layers. Anyway it's clear that there are plenty of more difficult soils around and has made me wonder how bad previous ploughing has been. Certainly not terrible by a long shot.

dug · Sep 16, 2014

DKA I agree there are a lot of people that don't understand what "heavy" soil really is. Indeed I know people that farm sand or silt bases soils that regard a loamier or damper paddock as their heavy soil.
I'm not one of those..... Even though we are near the coastal sand belt, I am talking about "fine textured" soil with a clay subsoil with a daily infiltration rate of less than 3 mm without drainage. It is the type of soil that looks great when it is dry and friable, yet looks totally uninviting when damp and will punish you severely if you drill to damp.
I equally get amused by characters who dismiss any info passed onto them or ignore results that others are achieving simply because you think your own set of conditions are different or you take exception to someone from another region relaying thoughts.

Cross Slot drilling into Rye covercrop

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