Strip till on a mixed farm with potatoes?

KennyO

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Angus
Is anybody practicing strip tip in Scotland or Northern England successfully in a rotation with potatoes. Currently ploughing everything and drilling with a power harrow drill, except sometimes just deep cultivation after potatoes.
I believe @Colin did have a claydon.

Interested from a soil conservation point of view and mostly for time saving as I do most of the ploughing and drilling myself.

Currently have a 6 or 7 year rotation. Something like pots, ww(or sb), wb, wosr, ww, sb.

The biggest issue I can see is getting stone rows mixed back through soil profile without ploughing after potatoes. Would there be any benefit running a strip till drill and still ploughing before and after potatoes.

Renting ground for potatoes and renting our store provide a good reliable income which is needed in years like this one.

We also apply cattle dung 2 or 3 years out of every rotation and have a little grass for silage.

Cropping approx 400ac of combinables.

Thanks
 

David_A

Member
BASE UK Member
Location
Fife
Is anybody practicing strip tip in Scotland or Northern England successfully in a rotation with potatoes. Currently ploughing everything and drilling with a power harrow drill, except sometimes just deep cultivation after potatoes.
I believe @Colin did have a claydon.

Interested from a soil conservation point of view and mostly for time saving as I do most of the ploughing and drilling myself.

Currently have a 6 or 7 year rotation. Something like pots, ww(or sb), wb, wosr, ww, sb.

The biggest issue I can see is getting stone rows mixed back through soil profile without ploughing after potatoes. Would there be any benefit running a strip till drill and still ploughing before and after potatoes.

Renting ground for potatoes and renting our store provide a good reliable income which is needed in years like this one.

We also apply cattle dung 2 or 3 years out of every rotation and have a little grass for silage.

Cropping approx 400ac of combinables.

Thanks
Not strictly strip till, but we sow our wheat after pots with a sumo trio. The aim being to break the compaction and level the field, ths sed being spread before the packer. Sometimes a quick pass for more levelling is required, especially this year. The aim is to leave the brock on the surface. We then try to no till subsequent crops with the jd 750a. The problem is that you end up with as much machinery as a plough based system. Our system has morphed over the years, so no particular machine was bought specifically for this task.
The compaction from the tattie harvest goes down some 18 to 24 inches, how do we remove that. We aim to get the soil in as good a condition before the tatties with cover crops etc so it can better stand the punishment. Ultimately we may need to stop the tatties and veg, but that feels like a cop out.
I think the options for many to get into no till or strip till should include sharing machinery with like minded neighbours.
 

Colin

Member
Location
Perthshire
Still got a claydon but don't use it now. Plough and combi now. It was only a 3m and didn't suit the soils we were farming elsewhere so went back to combi. Still need to do something after potatoes to break compaction so we either subsoil it plough and drill
 
Is anybody practicing strip tip in Scotland or Northern England successfully in a rotation with potatoes. Currently ploughing everything and drilling with a power harrow drill, except sometimes just deep cultivation after potatoes.
I believe @Colin did have a claydon.

Interested from a soil conservation point of view and mostly for time saving as I do most of the ploughing and drilling myself.

Currently have a 6 or 7 year rotation. Something like pots, ww(or sb), wb, wosr, ww, sb.

The biggest issue I can see is getting stone rows mixed back through soil profile without ploughing after potatoes. Would there be any benefit running a strip till drill and still ploughing before and after potatoes.

Renting ground for potatoes and renting our store provide a good reliable income which is needed in years like this one.

We also apply cattle dung 2 or 3 years out of every rotation and have a little grass for silage.

Cropping approx 400ac of combinables.

Thanks

Kenny I have been looking at this option for a number of years and still not bought one.

I had a Mzuri in on demo last year and thought it was a very well made drill and was happy enough with the job it did but last autumn was a doddle. Neil White is getting on well with his Mzuri and is on much stronger ground than me but doesn’t grow anything other than combinable crops.

A near neighbour runs a Sumo DTS 3 and there are a couple of Claydon Hybrids working in the county. Crops generally look very well behind them all although I’d say the Claydon is the simplest however being ridgid it sometimes shows up in the way the crop comes up especially on wheelings. I have no raw yield data to go buy it’s just visual road side farming or walking the fields when shooting or by invite.

I am similar to you in rotation spring barley-OSR-wheat-vining peas-wheat-seed pots-wheat. Like you I need a form of cultivation after spuds and peas hence why I have not taken the plunge.

We have power harrowed less than 150 acres in the past 20 years and only plough for winter barley or 2nd wheat when they have popped up in the rotation for whatever reason. Spuds, peas and spring barley are usually into Horsch Terrano FX cultivated land with low disturbance points, left all winter like you would ploughing then sprayed off and drilled. Same cultivator after spuds does a great job of redistributing the stone rows after spuds plus leaves volunteers in on top. The less we move the soil the better it gets over and also chopping straw plus all wheat and OSR gets hen pen and compost. Drilling with a Horsch Sprinter grain and fert with Dutch openers
 

eagleye

Member
Location
co down
we use Horsch joker with TG bar after potatoes, at an angle to level the field before drilling with Claydon hybrid. usually wheat follows potatoes, then w barley x2, osr or beans, oats, wheat.
Trying to cultivate as little as possible, depends on conditions after potatoes/maize/veg have had to plough if too bad.
 

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