d williams
Member
Do you think a disc drill would be better less soil movement
strip till soil movement
- Thread starter juke
- Start date
- Location
- Shropshire
Quite possibly yes, but I like the tine as it’s more forgiving, and I’m not saying 9” shares should be used everywhere, I did the osr with very worn A shares, some wheat with new 7” and some with 9”
As long as you know where and when it’s fine.
When we bought the Claydon I was aiming to go to a 750 in 5 years, I’m still not sure we are ready yet as I believe that the ground needs to be in tip top condition, and I also reckon if we did have a 750, or GD (as I do like those) I’d still like to keep the Claydon for CC and OSR, but that may be a bit of a luxury just yet so we’ll keep going as we are for now, improving the soil, worms, OM and learning more every season.
d williams
Member
Maybe a field or a few runs with bean coulter would be worth a try
I think it takes alot longer than we all think to raise OM levels and improve soil structure to a point where working of the soil is transformed.
All too often, you see a farm baling and selling their straw then buying in compost to restore the deficit- I just dont get that, excess traffic and wheelings dont contribute anything.
We sell some straw it comes back in the form of fym, we also apply compost and grow cover crops , we do chop all the rape and bean fields with some straw being chopped as well. the bit of straw we sell off helps pay for the cover crops and a bit of compost haulage.. I'm fairly certain the bit we loose from the straw and extra traffic we more than makeup with covers muck and compost.
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I used to do this. For the price of the straw vs the price of the compost it paid to do so on paper at least. When you're under pressure to deliver max output selling straw outweighs the replacement P and K in the south west. The extra traffic and remedial work to soil structure as well as a steady depreciation of the land unless it happens to be getting a big hit of compost that year does hide the true cost of baling. I looked at CTF and arrived at a different way of restricting traffic - by eliminating the balers, incorporating the straw and needing less Fibrophos/compost/sewage cake/FYM to replace offtake. All whilst hopefully making the soil better able to carry the lower amount of traffic.
I still sold half the cereal straw this year because I couldn't ignore the prices on offer that will buy a lot of compost to replace it.
It's a little easier down here where straw is worth little in a bale and heavy ground dislikes trafficking in the wet.
I would rather chop straw for those reasons but never say never to baling if it helps the next crop.I think PK etc are better corrected or improved using Fibrophos.
I would rather chop straw for those reasons but never say never to baling if it helps the next crop.I think PK etc are better corrected or improved using Fibrophos.