Direct Driller Magazine

Direct Driller is a new farming magazine, designed by farmers for farmers to educate and inform the industry about no-till techniques
Johnson-Su bioreactors have become all the rage on some regenerative farms. But what are they and how do you use them? Written By Mike Abram If first lockdown was all about building a firepit from spare discs, last autumn saw a surge in the construction of Johnson-Su bioreactors being showcased on social media. A Johnson-Su bioreactor is a method of creating fungal-rich compost, and was developed by Dr David Johnson, adjunct professor at California State University’s Center for...
ALTERNATIVE WEED CONTROL - A WORLD WITHOUT GLYPHOSATE BUT WHAT ARE THE ALTERNATIVES? Written by Maxime Barbier. First Published in TCS Magazine N°97 in March 2018 With the list of agrochemicals that is available to agriculture constantly shrinking and a threat hanging over the use of glyphosate, there is a growing interest more and more in alternative weeding solutions. All over the world many alternatives are being investigated; electricity, microwaves, thermal foam, water jet and bio...
Written by Jerry Alford from the Soil Association There has recently been a lot of interest in the potential of organic no-till and it has been described by some as the holy grail of organic arable farming. It is also something that is of interest to non-organic farms because of the potential to reduce inputs, particularly on less profitable break crops. Organic arable farming systems have always been built around the use of cover crops, diverse rotations and animals. Building fertility...
Dr Tom Dykstra is an American agriculturalist who specialises in entomology. Many farmers see pollination as the main benefit of the insect population, but as he describes, there are many more. Insect damage is often an indication of an unhealthy crop, and this is caused by crop stress which results from heavy applications of N, pesticide damage to soil microbes, and mechanical soil damage. Through his laboratory and talks to farmers he helps them move away from chemical farming. In 2018...
Put the Big ‘G’ - Grass - Back into your Farming System Article adapted from a presentation given by Cotswold Seeds MD Ian Wilkinson at this year’s Groundswell event In 2016, the NFU reported the biggest year-on-year fall in farm profitability since the millennium, as farmers deal with the impact of devastating cuts in the value of their products and the rising prices of nitrogen fertiliser. There are two ways to increase profit: Intensify to produce more, or lower cost of production...
This article was “Written by Camilla Hayselden-Ashby, Nuffield Scholar 2021 Hemp, Cannabis with a low level of the psychoactive compound THC (tetrahydrocannabinol), has seen a global upsurge in interest in the last decade. This has been driven by the growing popularity of CBD as a food supplement, demand for environmentally sustainable products and changes in legislation around cannabis growing. The global hemp market is projected to reach $15.26 billion by 2027. This growth in the...
Editor Mike Donovan interprets a vital study on soil run-off from Finland Nutrient and soil run-off to water courses is a major concern in Finland, with land in the southwest of major concern. For more than 20 years farmers in the region have been involved in many efforts to reduce the problem. These have included the use of buffer strips which will physically hold back run-off and encourage the water to soak away. Fertiliser restrictions have been another measure, but all have not been...
An Alternative System of Crop Nutrition Back in 1894, Julius Hensel wrote Bread From Stones which proposed the idea that all the minerals plants need are present in rocks. He used the annual flooding of farmland beside the River Nile as an example, where the soil’s fertility was maintained for thousands of years by sediment washed down from mountains to the South. Hensel compared this to the soil of many other civilisations which gradually lost its ability to grow crops and so, after a few...
A lot of the attention on no-till and zerotill is on cereal grain production and it is very encouraging as a manufacturer to see so many enquiries for our Boss drills both in the UK and Europe. Less focus is on the fresh foods we enjoy every day such as root veg, salads, potatoes, sugar beet and energy crops such as maize. All of these generally have very intensive tillage regimes as the “risk” is seen too high to venture off the beaten path. As well as being a shareholder in Sly as an...
by Frédéric Thomas and Matthieu Archambeaud from “ TCS magazine ”, France BASICS - During the period between cash crops, seeding any cover-crop is a big step forward in restoring water quality, maintaining and developing soil fertility and in the long term saving fertiliser inputs and reducing the need for tillage. There is no such thing as a bad species and neither are there any specifically good ones. Each plant has its own attributes that fit specific or diverse situations. So it is very...
How To Start Drilling For £8K Clive Bailye’s seed drill of choice is his 6m John Deere 750A , which has been used exclusively for 3-4 seasons. Last year, with an increased acreage, the founder and publisher of this Direct Driller magazine thought a second seed drill was necessary. Having just the one machine was a risk and in a difficult season would mean drilling was delayed. He looked around and found a good condition Horsch CO6 tine drill advertised in Germany. Words and pictures by...
Featured Farmer David Miller Wheatsheaf Farming Company (WFC) farms around 700 Hectares of grade 3 land in Hampshire for 3 landowners. 2 of the landowners also own WFC as a method of farming their land more cost effectively. David Miller, their farm manager, describes details of their move from conventional to no-till farming. I have worked in farming full time since 1975 and have progressed through the farming fashions that have presented themselves through the next 35 years. As such...
For when the chips are down – preserving UK soil microbial biodiversity for sustainable agriculture A UK wheat crop – one of the six to have its microbiome held and curated as part of the UK Crop Microbiome Cryobank (Credit: Pixabay). Written by Wayne Coles at CABI Scientists from the UK’s foremost agricultural research institutes have teamed up to create a new UK Crop Microbiome Cryobank (UK-CMCB) to safeguard future research and facilitate the sustainable yield improvement of the UK’s...
Farming What Needs To Change Mike Donovan reviews the seminal Hugh Bunting Memorial Lecture given by Professor Amir Kassam titled The Future of Farming: What needs to Change? The audience learned that, in the opinion of the professor at any rate, it was quite a lot. His concern is that agriculture has moved dangerously off course onto a path of declining productivity, and at the same time has negative impacts both ecologically and socially. His concern reached tipping point in 2011 when...
FEATURES FOR THE WET Dale Drills have been helping farmers to drive down the cost of crop establishment for over 20 years. Founded by Lincolnshire farmer, John ‘Edward’ Dale, the company has been a long term advocate of low impact cultivation – recognizing the importance it has for improving soil structure and the associated benefits of improved fertility and increased yields. Now run by Edward’s two sons, Tom and James, who grow 3500 acres of combinable crops (utilising No-Till and CTF...
CROSSCUTTER MAKES LIGHT WORK OF STALE SEEDBEDS Preparing the ideal stale seedbed ahead of a direct drill is an exacting task and like many farmers, Richard Budd has tried a number of approaches at Stevens Farm, near Hawkhurst, Kent. With 900ha of combinable crops on land varying from Weald clay to Tunbridge Wells sand, the focus is on winter cereals, but juggling the rotation can mean that volunteers are an issue as well as blackgrass. Volunteers have become a particular problem in winter...
Written by James Warne from Soil First Farming A word of warning to all of you who buy bulk lime products. There appears to be nobody in the supply chain fighting your corner to ensure the quality of the lime you buy meets the legal requirements as laid down in the Fertiliser Regulations 1991. 100% of the bulk lime products we see tipped on farm does not meet these specifications in terms of particle size. Even if it’s being sold as screened lime it fails to make the specification. This...
No-Till Farmer USA, first published on May 29, 2018 in the Cover Crops Section Source: Penn State University Modern agricultural systems focus on specialization and simplification, but we are now experiencing unintended consequences, says Sjoerd Willem Duiker. Rural areas are depopulating as the number of farmers continues to decrease; water quality is under threat as soluble nutrients are leaking to ground and surface waters; soil organic matter has decreased, input costs have escalated...
Thank you once again to the people who put this together. May I ask a couple of questions? In Issue 10, why does it say "Anger & Frustration" on the cover? And in issue 11, I'd love to have some more detail on Tim Parton's Johnson-Su Bioreactor. What's the "tea bag" made out of, and how does he apply the liquid? Many thanks, NP.
A Blank Canvass Written by Tom Chapman, Head of Regenerative at Innovation for Agriculture How would we design agriculture now, in the 21st Century, if we were starting from scratch? What would we do differently, given what we know about regenerative agriculture and about farming with, not battling against, nature? Would we continue with the same cropping, the same machinery, the same fertiliser & spray regime and the same field layout or would things be radically different? We should...

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Tractor Chat #01

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Tractor Chat #01 - with Direct Driller Magazine Farmer Focus writer Phil Rowbottom


Discussing direct drilling wheat, Oil seed rape growing in the UK, Fendt 724 tractor and his Sky Easy Drill.
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