New Weaving DD drill

Christ I'm in 3!
Heavy clay, would not consider any other establishment technique at the present. Have tried plough/power Harrow, deep min-till, shallow min-till over a lifetime.
My soils have never looked so good.
It's the complete change of management imput that takes the time.
Rotation, cropping, nutrition etc all need to be relearned
oh and did I say cover crops. (Keeping the soil alive).

Oh dear I'm either class 3 or ungraded. Not sure which but it can't be good whatever :-(

Ok all my neighbours, you're right I'm making a right mess if things, but I'll persevere for a while yet, wouldn't recommend you try copying me though. Its never going to work commercially. Keep on with your solos etc;-)

Is there anyone actually doing no-till n the category 1 land??? You could find that's people who are on the poorer land that are more keen to go no-till coz their land is more challenging??

I'm sure If all our land was easy worked we'd be much slower to try ditching the plough

Louis Mc said:

Is there anyone actually doing no-till n the grade 1 land??? You could find that's people who are on the poorer land that are more keen to go no-till coz their land is more challenging??

I'm sure If all our land was easy worked we'd be much slower to try ditching the plough

Click to expand...

That map isn't soil classification as grades, it's no till classification grades, there's plenty of grade one and two on the marsh, soil type, but looks to be grade 3 no till wise.

Badshot said:

That map isn't soil classification as grades, it's no till classification grades, there's plenty of grade one and two on the marsh, soil type, but looks to be grade 3 no till wise.

Click to expand...

Sorry I meant grade 1 as in "perfectly suited to no-till"

What i really meant was category 1. I've edited above

I might be wrong but the high silt content of grade 1 soils make it a lot harder to structure and therefore less suited to dd. It would run together a lot easier, that and grade 1 is wasted on combinable crops

I think we need to agree the map is outdated

I agree with @Clive, if you have established a crop and it fails to produce there are other factors as to why other then drill. ie not managed properly or a drought in spring/summer or a weather event out of our control. IMO if you have established a good crop your more then 50% there and all to play for.

That map features in a no till piece in a forthcoming FW I believe.

A map that low resolution is frankly useless, I know how much soils can change in a mile, let alone 10+

Farmer.sa said:

I agree with @Clive, if you have established a crop and it fails to produce there are other factors as to why other then drill. ie not managed properly or a drought in spring/summer. IMO if you have established a good crop your more then 50% there and all to play for.

Click to expand...

Just not true.

I've seen peas here which established fine, then died in June because of compaction.

Clive said:

well thats rubbish then ! im in category 2 on that map and I certainly don't see lower yields of spring crops ! infact its zerotill that has made growing them even possible here

Click to expand...

It is. I'm in cat 3, and 15 years have proved that it isn't worth the paper it's printed on anymore. Modern tractors and drills have progressed enormously since those days, hoofing along at 16k and coulter pressures of a couple of hundred kgs would have been be beyond their wildest imaginations and knocking out 100 acres/day with a 4 m drill completely impossible unless you were drilling into an onion bed. This now gives us opportunity to pick and choose when the conditions are right and provided you have the balls to know when not to drill and wait for better conditions either in autumn or spring you won't go wrong. Grovelling crops in IMO whether dd or plough system is always a waste of time .
Coupled with the fact that we now realise OM is key to success and we have the internet to share ideas and problems that map can now be relegated to the bin ( sorry recycling ).

dontknowanything said:

Just not true.

I've seen peas here which established fine, then died in June because of compaction.

Click to expand...

As I said not managed properly[emoji12]

E_B said:

That map features in a no till piece in a forthcoming FW I believe.

Click to expand...

That too isn't worth the paper it's printed on anymore.

dontknowanything said:

A map that low resolution is frankly useless, I know how much soils can change in a mile, let alone 10+

Click to expand...

I don't think we have a single field where the soil is consistent from one side to the other..(Av field size 6.8 ha) The map was never conceived as being a definitive instrument in deciding whether or not direct drilling was going to work on your land or soils ...just a guide.
I am concerned that I have joined some form of sect (a bit like the organic movement 10 years ago before it became more mainstream) where you must not question the "higher authorities". I think DKN suggested at the last BASE AGM that we ought to have a speaker in who dis-agreed with the CA/No-till concept. I am 100% in favour of the system but I am not blinkered by the fact that there are problems and on occasion it will not work. We have Wolfgang Sturny speaking at the BASE AGM in February and the last presentation I heard of his he said that if your soils were prone to waterlogging for what ever reason you should be careful if you are planning to direct drill.. that was in 2006 so I will be interested to hear what he has to say ten years on..

Jim Bullock said:

We have Wolfgang Sturny speaking at the BASE AGM in February and the last presentation I heard of his he said that if your soils were prone to waterlogging for what ever reason you should be careful if you are planning to direct drill.. that was in 2006 so I will be interested to hear what he has to say ten years on..

Click to expand...

I shall look forward to that, I too will have my ears wide open.

Jim Bullock said:

I don't think we have a single field where the soil is consistent from one side to the other..(Av field size 6.8 ha) The map was never conceived as being a definitive instrument in deciding whether or not direct drilling was going to work on your land or soils ...just a guide.
I am concerned that I have joined some form of sect (a bit like the organic movement 10 years ago before it became more mainstream) where you must not question the "higher authorities". I think DKN suggested at the last BASE AGM that we ought to have a speaker in who dis-agreed with the CA/No-till concept. I am 100% in favour of the system but I am not blinkered by the fact that there are problems and on occasion it will not work. We have Wolfgang Sturny speaking at the BASE AGM in February and the last presentation I heard of his he said that if your soils were prone to waterlogging for what ever reason you should be careful if you are planning to direct drill.. that was in 2006 so I will be interested to hear what he has to say ten years on..

Click to expand...

I don't think there is any sect here Jim. I do however believe that no tillers fall into two categories, those that realise that any failures are down to poor management decisions and those that want to blame their soil/weather. I don't dd 100% of the time and I fully accept that it's down to either my own ( or other peoples ) decisions/management that is preventing me hitting the 100% mark, crop rotation being the most important/common one. A bit more careful planning would see fully adopting the system possible.
Until anyone accepts that they need to be in the first category they will never make it fully work IMO.

Unfortunately I have come to the conclusion that Jim is right about it being a bit like a sect, and it has made me less inclined to enter discussions as much as I did in the old FF days. If you don't run a JD750a you are certainly not in the sect!

I have held back from "owning up" to running a Weaving GD this autumn because of that, and have read with not a little irritation some of the uninformed nonsense on here about it. It is true we had a bit of a problem with the pressure on the discs initially, leading to the drill actually tilting to one side after a few hours running,which entailed resetting the pressure and locking it again. This was all due to how the hydraulic plumbing was done, and after Weavings seriously replumbed it all was well. There is still a minor problem with the durability of the scrapers, but that is being dealt with, Weavings are a good company to deal with.

We have since had no problem with penetration even when dry, and it is particularly effective keeping constant wheat and rape depths which was why we like it on our ground (my italics)

It has been used on about 600 acs, of rape after wheat,2nd wheats and first wheats after rape and borage. It was used in the spring for borage with success. So far I am pleased with the results.

I also run a T sem which is a good little drill, especially for "incorporating" biosolids, it is less inclined to hairpin straw and will go in much wetter "fire brigade" conditions! But it lacks any sophistication in the depth control area (which may or may not be important?) and is not as low disturbance as the GD.

I suspect the GD may not be ideal for winter bean drilling depths? but we don't grow beans so no prob. But don't lets knock the drill because its not a 750a, I have to say that last spring I visited a neighbour using a 750 on the same day we were using the GD and the GD was making a much better job, that flap of soil that the seed is injected under is a breakthrough in comparison to a vertical slot.

Light the blue touchpaper and stand well back!!!!

cb

I agree with the sect comment too FWIW

Why is a forum for direct drilling a sect?

Are we supposed to discuss other things?-

It doesnt matter what drill is used really, they are equally capable it just depends on how you chose to manage your system. Sounds like oversensivity about drills to me!