- Location
- Moreton-in-Marsh, Glos
A lot is going to depend on what make and type of drill you are using and the soil type: light/heavy.If it’s a sensible rate (I use 100kg of 20:10:10) the theory is that you get quicker uptake for crops in the spring that need nutrition fast. The wide row spacing we use I think adds to this need. I have left bits without before and have seen a difference and picked up on yield meter. When we had a liquid fertiliser drill I once did a trial on barley where I put 80kg of n down the spout and yielded the same as the rest of the field which had 20 down the spout and 100 broadcast. But that was probably more a case of over fertilising and the season rather than putting it down the spout.
Especially if it is a tine or disc type. I know you use an Amazon Condor which is a sort of tine type.
A disc type creates a ‘slit’ into which the seed (and fertiliser) is blown into the crease at the bottom of it.
The chances of fertiliser coming into direct contact with the seed is very much greater on this type.
I use a Weaving GD that creates a 22 degree angled slit and has a vent at the top of the coulter above the discs, that loses 50% of the air volume and pressure to ensure that the seed (and fertiliser) end up at that crease.
Logic suggested to me that this is a dangerous thing to do!
In just the same way that having applied a pre-em soon after drilling, to be followed by heavy and/or large volumes of rain, washes the vast majority of the pre-em into he trench and it is curtains for any sensible sort of plant count/metre. Especially if the soil and drilling was a bit sticky and smeared the sides of the slit/trench. Which is a greater risk with any type of disc Direct drill.
Which in itself is why I now firmly believe that we need both a tine and disc Direct drill, depending on the soil type and how et the drilling season is. IIRC @SilliamWhale suggests this and has both types. And is why @Warnesworth and Steve Townsend strongly suggest that those new to DD start off with a tine drill until their land is capable of successfully using a disc type DD.
Either way tine or disc and depending on what sort of soil type you have got, I believe we each have to decide what the risk is of placing fertiliser down the same slit/trench to the germinating crop.
With potatoes for instance, grown on obviously ‘wide’ rows, they place seedbed fertilisers a distance to the side of the seed potatoes, for exactly this reason.
The recent grant system has encouraged a lot of manufactures to built even more expensive drills with what they claim is the extra fertiliser system thrown in virtually for free.
Where that system needs not only an extra feed roller, but an addiction distribution mushroom and delivery pipe-work, I believe this to be an abuse of where our former BPS money is ending up!
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