The heaviest / most difficult soils to farm in the Uk?

[JWL]

Used to work on some heavy clay in South Warwickshire which incidentally wasn't a million miles from @Two Tone
The secret for us was to get it ploughed and let the winter do its thing, then again in the late 80's yes it could get wet but at least the winters would chuck some prolonged frosts which we're not really getting nowadays.

 

[ollie989898]

Think you mean these pictures. Horrible stuff but not everything is like it. Having seen @Tom H and @Belvoir Juicer soil it’s similar to that. Ploughing just creates far more work.

Ploughs up like horses heads. Never seen anything like that around here though.

Of course in days gone by it was ploughed and left all winter, frost would do the rest.

 

[Pilatus]

Some rare stuff on the humber bank ,evil red clay that was used for roof tiles and bricks ,inland we had carr land ,an over lay of heavy silt on top of sand ,in a dry time you could do anything with it ,subsoil it 18inch,plough it ,knock it down and drill ,4 tn + an acre with third year wheat's .
When it turned wet you didnt go anywhere near it ,,like the proverbial to a nappy

Interesting that you mentioned the above. About 18yrs ago I helped a farmer out at harvest who farmed not far from Immingham. One September day they sent me to plough a field literally across the road from the Immingham Oil Refinery storage tanks. The soil was like ploughing steel ,it seemed completely structureless and it was like plasticine strips turning over and it took a hell of a lot of power as the soil just did not want to move!!!!
To my amazement they said the field was going to go into vining peas in the next spring. After I had finished ploughing the field they said they would put a set of heavy discs across it ,set straight,so as to slice the soil to let the winter weather break it down, whether it did or not I don't know .

 

[benny6910]

Min till chopped straw and minimal compaction is the best way to help heavy land. Bailing straw spreading muck in any year apart from probably this year does more damage than good in my opinion. Then you stand a chance if the winter weather is kind and your not gripping water off it for months. 5ton/acre of wheat is possible but not every year is the same.

 

[ollie989898]

Min till chopped straw and minimal compaction is the best way to help heavy land. Bailing straw spreading muck in any year apart from probably this year does more damage than good in my opinion. Then you stand a chance if the winter weather is kind and your not gripping water off it for months. 5ton/acre of wheat is possible but not every year is the same.

Good rotation (proper farming) and manures/livestock have tamed plenty of soils worldwide and continue to do so.

 

[Lincsman]

Interesting that you mentioned the above. About 18yrs ago I helped a farmer out at harvest who farmed not far from Immingham. One September day they sent me to plough a field literally across the road from the Immingham Oil Refinery storage tanks. The soil was like ploughing steel ,it seemed completely structureless and it was like plasticine strips turning over and it took a hell of a lot of power as the soil just did not want to move!!!!
To my amazement they said the field was going to go into vining peas in the next spring. After I had finished ploughing the field they said they would put a set of heavy discs across it ,set straight,so as to slice the soil to let the winter weather break it down, whether it did or not I don't know .

Not far from me and sounds about right, ploughing for vineing peas next week.
Some of my land is only still a field because the tile making factory closed, they didnt take any top soil off to get to the clay.
Its called Marine alluvium apparently.
As above, it will yield 4t/ac no problem, if its farmed properly in the right autumn.

 

[Lincs Lass]

Interesting that you mentioned the above. About 18yrs ago I helped a farmer out at harvest who farmed not far from Immingham. One September day they sent me to plough a field literally across the road from the Immingham Oil Refinery storage tanks. The soil was like ploughing steel ,it seemed completely structureless and it was like plasticine strips turning over and it took a hell of a lot of power as the soil just did not want to move!!!!
To my amazement they said the field was going to go into vining peas in the next spring. After I had finished ploughing the field they said they would put a set of heavy discs across it ,set straight,so as to slice the soil to let the winter weather break it down, whether it did or not I don't know .

Yes ,there's some evil stuff out there .

 

[Lincs Lass]

Not far from me and sounds about right, ploughing for vineing peas next week.
Some of my land is only still a field because the tile making factory closed, they didnt take any top soil off to get to the clay.
Its called Marine alluvium apparently.
As above, it will yield 4t/ac no problem, if its farmed properly in the right autumn.

Was that Goxhill tiles .

 

[benny6910]

Good rotation (proper farming) and manures/livestock have tamed plenty of soils worldwide and continue to do so.

Yes I agree but there is a massive difference between badly farmed land and heavy land in my opinion. You cannot badly farm heavy land as you will get nothing back from it.

 

[warksfarmer]

Ploughs up like horses heads. Never seen anything like that around here though.

Of course in days gone by it was ploughed and left all winter, frost would do the rest.

Historically the best practise on these soils was a pigtail after harvest, then back again about 4 weeks later, then a spring time ahead of a disc drill at drilling in mid October. Then a very slow 24 inch cambridge rill roll. Subsoiled every 4 years before the first pigtail pass.

 

[Farmer Roy]

Just a question . . .


I read lots of posts on TFF about 300 hp tractors pulling 4 or 6 m wide gear on heavy land, power requirements which quite frankly are mind blowing to me

so . . . before high horsepower tractors, how did they farm these soils ( presumably they’ve been farmed for hundreds of years ) with horses back in the day ?

I farm on heavy black alluvial clay soils here, none of this sort of country was EVER farmed up before the 1950’s or later, until the advent of higher horsepower tractors

they literally couldn’t farm it with horses before then

now, with zero till, our HP requirements are quite low, but when we were doing cultivations, draught requirements were very high

So, I still don’t understand how you were able to farm these “heavy” clays with horses ?

have you gone from farming soils with horses to now requiring big horsepower & high fuel use, whereas we have gone from not being able to farm it with horses due to the high draught, to high horsepower tractors to much lower requirements ?

 

[teslacoils]

I suspect a lot were cattle or dairy. Grant aided drainage helped. And a rush to plough everything up pre-IACS subsidy reform.

But that's nothing new. Where my family used to farm has gone from bog, to cleared and drained, to chopped up by railways, subsided due to mining, back to bóg and now nature reserve in under 300 years.

 

[Lowland1]

There used to a lot of land just inland of Mablethorpe and Sutton on Sea that was grassland up until the early ‘80s when tractors became powerful enough to plough it up.

 

[fudge]

I suspect a lot were cattle or dairy. Grant aided drainage helped. And a rush to plough everything up pre-IACS subsidy reform.

But that's nothing new. Where my family used to farm has gone from bog, to cleared and drained, to chopped up by railways, subsided due to mining, back to bóg and now nature reserve in under 300 years.

It also comes down to the need to farm. In this area a lot of rough grazed land was brought into production during WW2. After that conflict the need for self reliance in the face of food shortages lingered on throughout Europe.

 

[Chalky]

If anyone knows the area, I used to manage the estate at Duddo a few miles south of the Scottish border. Now some of that is some gear!
Second gang of discs would block, press-forget it! 2003 dry year, two inches down it was identical to the brown plasticine in the kiddies multi-colour packs, if you remember them? Never cracked, completely structureless. There was a seam of this crap either side of the border-I think Ramrig on the north side had a fair share.

Hack it up and dry it before you could do anything useful with it. In comparison, heavy Lincolnshire flat carr near the Humber is a walk in the park!

 

[yorkie]

If anyone knows the area, I used to manage the estate at Duddo a few miles south of the Scottish border. Now some of that is some gear!
Second gang of discs would block, press-forget it! 2003 dry year, two inches down it was identical to the brown plasticine in the kiddies multi-colour packs, if you remember them? Never cracked, completely structureless. There was a seam of this crap either side of the border-I think Ramrig on the north side had a fair share.

Hack it up and dry it before you could do anything useful with it. In comparison, heavy Lincolnshire flat carr near the Humber is a walk in the park!

not a lot different to some at Bowsden one of the fields was called the brickie lots of muck helped , when where you at duddo

 

[Grass And Grain]

Reading these posts I conclude....

Ruminant farming has been so disappointingly unprofitable, folk would rather try growing corn on solid clay (when it suits grass better).

 

[robs1]

Reading these posts I conclude....

Ruminant farming has been so disappointingly unprofitable, folk would rather try growing corn on solid clay (when it suits grass better).

Or they just dont like work seven days a week and the smell of muck and silage on their hands.

 

[Lincsman]

Was that Goxhill tiles .

Yes.

 

[Northern territory]

Not sure whether this has been mentioned but has anyone asked the question if some land was probably permanent pasture at some point. Some land is arable that never should have been really.