Sumo DD Spring Drilling

You can see though where emergence has suffered in the unraked area where the slot has been left incompletely closed. The rooks and slugs may have exacerbated the effect.
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JonL

Member
Location
East Yorks
You can see though where emergence has suffered in the unraked area where the slot has been left incompletely closed. The rooks and slugs may have exacerbated the effect.
View attachment 149072
Is the open slot due to not raking or because of the blackgrass cover retaining moisture in the soil or just a heavier patch. We have the same effect in patches after the sumo DD. Those patches are where there was a higher BG population and more moisture retained. Whole field was "tickled"
 
Is the open slot due to not raking or because of the blackgrass cover retaining moisture in the soil or just a heavier patch. We have the same effect in patches after the sumo DD. Those patches are where there was a higher BG population and more moisture retained. Whole field was "tickled"

A combination of three things - wetter soil under BG patches, slightly tighter soil where the combine / trailers have run and a little bit of heavier patches as well.
 

MDA

Member
Trade
Is the open slot due to not raking or because of the blackgrass cover retaining moisture in the soil or just a heavier patch. We have the same effect in patches after the sumo DD. Those patches are where there was a higher BG population and more moisture retained. Whole field was "tickled"

Was having a look myself Jonathan at your field and noticed the difference in establishment on the old BG patches, after a bit of digging I found a few dead rotting seeds in the slot. I wondered if it was the effect of the dying root mass of the BG that would cause this to happen, as other parts of the field where some slotting has occurred, establishment looks ok even thought the top of the slot is open as opposed to the drilling in the BG patches that the drill actually closed the slot pretty well.
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JonL

Member
Location
East Yorks
Was having a look myself Jonathan at your field and noticed the difference in establishment on the old BG patches, after a bit of digging I found a few dead rotting seeds in the slot. I wondered if it was the effect of the dying root mass of the BG that would cause this to happen, as other parts of the field where some slotting has occurred, establishment looks ok even thought the top of the slot is open as opposed to the drilling in the BG patches that the drill actually closed the slot pretty well.
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I'll have to have another look now you say this, I've only really looked at the few patches with slightly poorer establishment which are also the blackgrass areas. The conclusion I'd reached with the agronomist was that the poorer establishment was to do with a little bit more wetness at drilling due to the mat of blackgrass, something that is borne out by his experience of cover crops this year. His verdict is forget cover crops on heavy land. I think its fair to say the field was only just "right" when we drilled it, and perhaps the blackgrass areas were too wet really.

All that said, very pleased with the result - establishment has been better than the field we drilled with the vaderstad (which was good anyway) and it has taken the recent rainfall very well in comparison.
 
Was having a look myself Jonathan at your field and noticed the difference in establishment on the old BG patches, after a bit of digging I found a few dead rotting seeds in the slot. I wondered if it was the effect of the dying root mass of the BG that would cause this to happen, as other parts of the field where some slotting has occurred, establishment looks ok even thought the top of the slot is open as opposed to the drilling in the BG patches that the drill actually closed the slot pretty well.
View attachment 149218 View attachment 149230 View attachment 149232

Black-grass is meant to have an allelopathic effect.
 
An update of how the Claydon and Sumo trial is looking.

Main part of the field with the Claydon:
(I thought I had a picture of this but apparently didn't take one. Will attempt to get one).

Some areas are better where the maschio turned and gave a finer seedbeed and more moisture retention / slug killing. You can see off to the left that it isn't as good.
13052015795.jpg


Sumo area raked and rolled:
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Sumo area rolled:
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Boundary between Claydon area and the Sumo.
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Personally I think the Sumo area is looking noticeably better (an observation shared by my father when he walked it) -- haven't done plant counts to compare though. There are better and worse patches in the Claydon area where the soil changed slighly. Sumo is pretty even, although there are some (but not that many really) gaps down the row where the slot wasn't closed very well.
 
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MDA

Member
Trade
A few pictures here of a trial plot of bird mix being DD'd on the 21st April and subsequent pictures since. 200kgs of barley drilled in the first pictures and in the last picture was 90kgs of barley/phacelia/vetch/millet into osr stubble.
21-4-15
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12-5-15
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22-5-15 wild bird mix
 
Nice day for crop photos.

Sumo area:
2015-06-04 16.24.59.jpg

Crop seems to be doing well with little impediment. The rows are coming together too which is good.

There is the odd bit where there was tighter soil where a combination of rooks / slugs / incomplete slot closure / inhospitable soil conditions gave slightly barer areas. These comprise a pretty small % of the total area.
2015-06-04 16.26.49.jpg


Good parts of the Claydon area which are looking pretty good now:
2015-06-04 16.28.37.jpg


The poorer bits are much thinner. As I've said already, these form a greater % of the drilled area than in the Sumo area.
2015-06-04 16.27.34.jpg


I haven't got a definite view on the weed emergence in the different areas. Will be clearer from BG point of view a bit later in the season.
 

MDA

Member
Trade
Sumo DD3 polished up and ready for Cereals!
Stand 1232 (y)
IMG_5511.JPG


Plus on the working demo plots, which amongst a number of other machines, we will have the DD6 and DTS4 actually 'drilling' a product into the ground to give you a good representation of seed placement in real conditions (hope this works now!!)
See you there. Marv.
 
Sumo DD3 polished up and ready for Cereals!
Stand 1232 (y)
View attachment 163050

Plus on the working demo plots, which amongst a number of other machines, we will have the DD6 and DTS4 actually 'drilling' a product into the ground to give you a good representation of seed placement in real conditions (hope this works now!!)
See you there. Marv.

No hydraulic down-force with springs instead? Is that going to be a feature on the wider models?
 

MDA

Member
Trade
Many thanks to all of you that came to see us at the Sumo stand at Cereals, we've had a busy few days and a massive amount of interest in our new products including the new DD, so thank you to all those that took the time to have a look, and for the hundreds of enquiries we received for it, and all of our other range of equipment.
From my point of view it was great to get opinions and feed back on the new DD which is always hugely important to us, and to see so much interest in what we are trying to achieve with it. The working demo plots worked well in showing off the DD and DTS, and I was pleased that the 'drilling' of the wood pellets was a success as it gave you a good idea of seed placement in real time conditions. I know the ground was not exactly ideal with it being very light and dry, but I think drilling an area and leaving it for people to have a scratch about behind the drilling was favourable to turning our demo plot into some kind of dessert storm recreation!:rolleyes:
Still not sure about the sowing rate on wood pellets though. Anyone?!

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Although we now have a lot of DD demo enquiries to work through this Autumn, we will have our 6m DD for the North and East and also @Johndeere will have a 6m DD for the South and South West, so there is still a good opportunity to see these drills working on your farm. We will also be putting the 3m into the ground after this summer's show season, so please get in touch if you wish to see any of these machines working by either contacting us at [email protected] or through myself or @Johndeere.
I would especially be interested in anyone with green cover/cover crops we could have a go in please.


Also a big thank you to Scrutons and Louth Tractors for the lend of the demo tractors and to Dave Franciosy for his massive selfie stick!!
IMG_5769.JPG


ATB, Marv.(y)
 

Jim Bullock

Never Forgotten
Honorary Member
Many thanks to all of you that came to see us at the Sumo stand at Cereals, we've had a busy few days and a massive amount of interest in our new products including the new DD, so thank you to all those that took the time to have a look, and for the hundreds of enquiries we received for it, and all of our other range of equipment.
From my point of view it was great to get opinions and feed back on the new DD which is always hugely important to us, and to see so much interest in what we are trying to achieve with it. The working demo plots worked well in showing off the DD and DTS, and I was pleased that the 'drilling' of the wood pellets was a success as it gave you a good idea of seed placement in real time conditions. I know the ground was not exactly ideal with it being very light and dry, but I think drilling an area and leaving it for people to have a scratch about behind the drilling was favourable to turning our demo plot into some kind of dessert storm recreation!:rolleyes:
Still not sure about the sowing rate on wood pellets though. Anyone?!

View attachment 164900

View attachment 164898

View attachment 164916

Although we now have a lot of DD demo enquiries to work through this Autumn, we will have our 6m DD for the North and East and also @Johndeere will have a 6m DD for the South and South West, so there is still a good opportunity to see these drills working on your farm. We will also be putting the 3m into the ground after this summer's show season, so please get in touch if you wish to see any of these machines working by either contacting us at [email protected] or through myself or @Johndeere.
I would especially be interested in anyone with green cover/cover crops we could have a go in please.


Also a big thank you to Scrutons and Louth Tractors for the lend of the demo tractors and to Dave Franciosy for his massive selfie stick!!
View attachment 164912

ATB, Marv.(y)
Looking at the Cereals site map Bullock-Tillage was only a few yards from your stand but we never saw your kit working as we spent two days in a dust cloud..! :censored:
 

tw15

Member
Location
DORSET
Yep was rather disappointed in the fact that mzuri were just making a dust cloud by raking and raking after it had gone 50 yards you couldn't see what machine it was anyhow.
A bit irresponsible i thought and inconsiderate.
Do like the rake mind and there kit but i felt the actions of using the rake that was just making a dust cloud was not good as the wind was blowing it into the faces of others and potential customers so self defeating.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

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Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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