Sumo DD Spring Drilling

BSH · Apr 12, 2015

Was looking at these thinking they were a good idea. Mostly on the basis that most of the time you don't need them, but when you do they are invaluable. The blurb about narrower wheels also soundedappealing! Spent enough on my drill for now so pipe dream really.

MDA · Apr 13, 2015

A few update shots from some barley we drilled on 11th of March into stubble at 40mm depth. I did see some rook damage, but not a lot. I think putting the seed at that depth helped keep it out of the way especially on this sand land.
12kmh drilling speed has not seemed to create disturbance that would germinate weeds from the coulters, but I did see evidence of this from behind the tractor wheels where the tyre cleats had pulled at the soil. I guess lower tyre pressure and slower forward speed would have prevented this.
This land is prone to blowing very badly in spring time if it is traditionally tilled, so the whole process of using the DD and the DTS previously here has improved this situation enormously.
Marv.

MDA · Apr 15, 2015

The root structure here seems to have created an ideal environment to drill into. Zero soil throw and enough moisture for good disc penetration.
The disc looks like it has stood straw on end in the row, there was none hair pinned into the seed slot though!

Andrew K · Apr 15, 2015

Perfect for disc drills, now that moisture preservation is becoming important over much of the country, looks good Marcus.

Feldspar · Apr 19, 2015

Marcus is kindly coming to demo the drill tomorrow, all being well. If anyone would like to see it working in the CB9 area send me a PM.

JonL · Apr 20, 2015

MDA said:
This field had been subsoiled last autumn and lightly harrowed a number of times over winter to allow BG to chit. There was a nice amount of tilth to around 40mm but bellow that was wetter so sowing depth was set at around 30mm but there was still some evidence of slotting in some areas.
To keep the soil disturbance to a minimum we reduced the forward speed to around 8-9kmh and for the majority the rear covering wheel was doing a good job of bringing crumb back on top of the sowing trench. Not punching the seed in, but just gently pushing soil back to cover the seed.
Tractor wheelings were slightly evident so wider tyres and lower psi would have helped here, but what was pleasing was sowing depth behind the wheels was not compromised due to the independent coulters.

I recognise that field! Picture today just over 3 weeks after drilling attached.

Really pleased with the result. The depth control of the coulters is fantastic and we've achieved really even emergence. A field we've drilled since with the vaderstad rapid will not emerge as evenly due to poorer depth control despite more tilth to work with. Of course the downside of independent coulter depth control is having to adjust depth on each coulter independently but I'm not sure how you can get around that?

It was interesting to observe today that where thick mats of blackgrass have been sprayed off the emergence has been patchier and the slots less closed, likely due to moisture retention under the blackgrass canopy. Demonstrates a potential problem of cover crops on heavy land I think rather than an issue with the drill.

Andrew K · Apr 21, 2015

Feldspar said:
Marcus is kindly coming to demo the drill tomorrow, all being well. If anyone would like to see it working in the CB9 area send me a PM.

Got any photos @Feldspar ?

Feldspar · Apr 21, 2015

Just thought I'd put a few thoughts and pictures up from the demo on Monday.

Firstly, thanks to @MDA and @Rob340 for coming to demonstrate the drill. It's great to see another thriving UK machinery company who are so enthusiastic about what they're doing.

This was our last field to finish the spring drilling. It's normally quite a nasty field to plough. The last time I tried I had to give up with the Dowdeswell and get someone else on the farm who knew what they were doing with another plough to make an acceptable job. It was a really good field to try the drill in because it is a little bit more difficult than average but not stupidly so, not billiard table smooth but no huge ruts, and my messing around with the spade didn't reveal any unfair challenges in form of hardpans or structure that was otherwise obviously problematic. Even with all this hot and dry weather there was still plenty of moisture an inch down although the top was dry.

It was Claydon drilled with spring beans last year which did pretty well for us (i.e. not a disaster), although the level of black-grass in the beans was not pleasing. We rather unwisely drilled winter wheat into it just before the rains in early October, then didn't get a chance to roll it or put pre-ems on because the heavens opened not too long after the drill left the field. For once we actually abided by the adage that first loss is the best one and sprayed it off when the amount of BG proved to be similar to the amount of wheat.

Then last Friday we drilled about two thirds of the field with the Claydon which looked like this:

The finish was not acceptable given the chance of continued dry weather. Therefore, we waited until the next day and then power-harrowed and then rolled which gave a good finish.

TBC

Badshot · Apr 21, 2015

Feldspar said:
Just thought I'd put a few thoughts and pictures up from the demo on Monday.

Firstly, thanks to @MDA and @Rob340 for coming to demonstrate the drill. It's great to see another thriving UK machinery company who are so enthusiastic about what they're doing.

This was our last field to finish the spring drilling. It's normally quite a nasty field to plough. The last time I tried I had to give up with the Dowdeswell and get someone else on the farm who knew what they were doing with another plough to make an acceptable job. It was a really good field to try the drill in because it is a little bit more difficult than average but not stupidly so, not billiard table smooth but no huge ruts, and my messing around with the spade didn't reveal any unfair challenges in form of hardpans or structure that was otherwise obviously problematic. Even with all this hot and dry weather there was still plenty of moisture an inch down although the top was dry.

View attachment 142486

It was Claydon drilled with spring beans last year which did pretty well for us (i.e. not a disaster), although the level of black-grass in the beans was not pleasing. We rather unwisely drilled winter wheat into it just before the rains in early October, then didn't get a chance to roll it or put pre-ems on because the heavens opened not too long after the drill left the field. For once we actually abided by the adage that first loss is the best one and sprayed it off when the amount of BG proved to be similar to the amount of wheat.

Then last Friday we drilled about two thirds of the field with the Claydon which looked like this:

View attachment 142484

The finish was not acceptable given the chance of continued dry weather. Therefore, we waited until the next day and then power-harrowed and then rolled which gave a good finish.

TBC

A set of paddle rolls would have sorted that finish out nicely

, much cheaper to run than a power harrow.

Feldspar · Apr 21, 2015

The finish in the Claydon section behind the power-harrow and rolls looked like this:

Monday arrived along and so did the drill. A perfect day for it and a really good test. This is where no-till should show its benefits in dry and warm conditions but with a bit of moisture under the surface.

I got a picture of the twice off-angle (or however you call it) disc:

Anyway, Rob duly set off using the setting I believe that he has used for most of the cereals so far this spring. My father was concerned that it wasn't in deep enough and that not enough of the seed was in contact with the moisture below. A few minutes and the coulters were set a touch deeper which was deemed acceptable and so play continued. The result behind the drill looked like this compared to the Claydon area:

Feldspar · Apr 21, 2015

Badshot said:
A set of paddle rolls would have sorted that finish out nicely, much cheaper to run than a power harrow.

Firstly, some of those lumps were at least the size of a human fist. In the autumn with rain guaranteed to arrive I might agree. In the current conditions I don't really agree. Batter boards would not be man enough to do much to those lumps. The rolls would do something once they had dried, but by that time the moisture would have gone. The way we did it enabled some of the moisture to be kept in and a good enough finish for pre-ems to have some chance in a pretty high BG field.

Feldspar · Apr 21, 2015

I think this is a fairly representative close-up of the Sumo's finish:

Badshot · Apr 21, 2015

Feldspar said:
Firstly, some of those lumps were at least the size of a human fist. In the autumn with rain guaranteed to arrive I might agree. In the current conditions I don't really agree. Batter boards would not be man enough to do much to those lumps. The rolls would do something once they had dried, but by that time the moisture would have gone. The way we did it enabled some of the moisture to be kept in and a good enough finish for pre-ems to have some chance in a pretty high BG field.

You really need to get some on demo, they do far more than you ever think possible. Billiard table fields and quite incredible finishes for pre ems to work on.

Feldspar · Apr 21, 2015

Badshot said:
You really need to get some on demo, they do far more than you ever think possible. Billiard table fields and quite incredible finishes for pre ems to work on.

Annoyingly I would have like to have got them on the new rolls, but I couldn't find any 12m sets which had them as an option.

Andrew K · Apr 21, 2015

Thanks James,
Interesting to see how any blackgrass reacts to the different establishment method.
The sumo drill can certainly claim low disturbance ability IMO.

Badshot · Apr 21, 2015

Feldspar said:
Annoyingly I would have like to have got them on the new rolls, but I couldn't find any 12m sets which had them as an option.

I think Phillip watkins does them on 12m, but yes very few do have it as an option.

Badshot · Apr 21, 2015

Sorry taking the thread off topic, be an interesting comparison. I have some local claydon drilling right next to weaving big disc to watch, so far the claydon into conditions that appeared worse (lumpier) than yours, has made the first appearance.

Feldspar · Apr 21, 2015

Just to get the pictures out of the way, we tried it into the Claydon bit of the field to get an idea how it went in cultivated ground. This was the result:

Then I rushed off to London to watch a Lang Lang piano concert (vital part of successful no-till IMO) hoping that it wouldn't dry out too much before rolling.

This morning I attached the rake and my father attached the mashio (his natural response to any situation). We both did a little bit of the DD drilled area as a trial. The maschio was a silly idea, or at least that's my opinion. If a no-till drill can't work in these conditions without a maschio then there's no point.

The rake on the other hand was interesting. I had been keen to try this method ever since I went to @martian 's open day last year where there was a spring wheat field that John said was drilled a touch on the wet side. @Simon Chiles at the time suggested that a rake or rolls (maybe with batter boards) would have been an interesting trial. Anyway, I was really pleased with the result. Super cheap and fast and it left a really even finish (pictures to follow). Arguably given the good drilling conditions it was unnecessary. However, I look forward to finding that out. There were a few places with a fairly open slot (not many, but a few) and the rake tickled some loose soil in and shattered the remaining sidewall. The downside, apart from the extra pass, could well be more black-grass germination. Once again, I will be able to see in the different areas.

Feldspar · Apr 21, 2015

Picture showing the boundary between raked and non-raked area:

Perhaps clearer picture (quality not as good due to using 18th century phone this morning):

Clive · Apr 21, 2015

thanks for posting @Feldspar

dod you have any pics of the seed in the slot ? how well did the drill put the seed in touch with the moisture without a JD style firming wheel ? thats the bit I feel is missing from this drill

certainly have been an ideal zero-till spring, dry surface but good moisture in seeding zone, beans planted a week ago here are almost though already

Sumo DD Spring Drilling

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Staff Member

0 %

Up to 25%

25-50%

50-75%

75-100%

100% I’ve had enough of farming!

Share this page