How to mole & keep fields level in no-till?

teslacoils · Dec 27, 2020

2wheels said:
what the hell is this country coming to when you need permission to work your own land? i know it costs money if you get it wrong -but.

We get paid to follow the rules. I took the shilling so do what I'm told. However in a normal year I'd not expect to have a) half a ton to the acre oats shake out and b) no frost to stop them growing. I'm pleased they are there for the rooting, but I'd rather ask to see if I could at least go over with a weed surfer before the oats seed, rather than "find" some bg and spray the lot off in may then have a big mess of rotting stalks.

teslacoils · Dec 27, 2020

If I can keep the oats growing, and avoid them seeding, I'll have some epic rootmass come August.

Hindsight · Dec 27, 2020

2wheels said:
what the hell is this country coming to when you need permission to work your own land? i know it costs money if you get it wrong -but.

But the stewardship scheme is optional, and the selection of option AB6 with its cultivation restrictions within the scheme is again entirely upto the applicant.

2wheels · Dec 27, 2020

Hindsight said:
But the stewardship scheme is optional, and the selection of option AB6 with its cultivation restrictions within the scheme is again entirely upto the applicant.

well i'm getting old but i'm glad i'm not farming now. too much hassles.

teslacoils · Dec 27, 2020

It pays about £150/ac.

Hindsight · Dec 27, 2020

From my college days 40 odd years ago we were taught that ideal time to draw a mole was Late April/May when soil surface conditions were good for traffic and soil at moling depth (22 - 26 inches) was plastic. The expanded mole with the clay pressured to form a inverted 'tile' drain would then have the dry summer and hopefully a crop above to dry and 'seal' the inside of the mole. Pulling the mole at sufficient depth (field land drains back fill gravel / stone allowing/dependent) would produce minimal surface heave, but require considerable tractive power for the mole and expander to squeeze 3 inches of soil into about 3mm. Exponential increase. Metal tracklayers in those days. In general if the mole heaved at all it was set to shallow.

Can I assume you guys go back with a small 360 occasionally to trench across the line of moling to check how the moles are looking after a year or two. Quite fascinating on soils with sufficient subsoil clay content. The marine alluviums around the fen edge have too much silt and collapse after a year or so.

Feldspar · Dec 27, 2020

Hindsight said:
From my college days 40 odd years ago we were taught that ideal time to draw a mole was Late April/May when soil surface conditions were good for traffic and soil at moling depth (22 - 26 inches) was plastic. The expanded mole with the clay pressured to form a inverted 'tile' drain would then have the dry summer and hopefully a crop above to dry and 'seal' the inside of the mole. Pulling the mole at sufficient depth (field land drains back fill gravel / stone allowing/dependent) would produce minimal surface heave, but require considerable tractive power for the mole and expander to squeeze 3 inches of soil into about 3mm. Exponential increase. Metal tracklayers in those days. In general if the mole heaved at all it was set to shallow.

Can I assume you guys go back with a small 360 occasionally to trench across the line of moling to check how the moles are looking after a year or two. Quite fascinating on soils with sufficient subsoil clay content. The marine alluviums around the fen edge have too much silt and collapse after a year or so.

Apparently we used to mole at 27 inches but now do 24 inches. I wonder whether going to 26 inches would make much difference?

teslacoils · Dec 27, 2020

Round here the backfill is usually up to 12" under the surface so moling done around 18". A lot of fields are still with working tile drains at 2 ft deep so deep moling no good. At 18" you can pull fine with a wheeled tractor nice and steady.

ajd132 · Dec 27, 2020

Hindsight said:
From my college days 40 odd years ago we were taught that ideal time to draw a mole was Late April/May when soil surface conditions were good for traffic and soil at moling depth (22 - 26 inches) was plastic. The expanded mole with the clay pressured to form a inverted 'tile' drain would then have the dry summer and hopefully a crop above to dry and 'seal' the inside of the mole. Pulling the mole at sufficient depth (field land drains back fill gravel / stone allowing/dependent) would produce minimal surface heave, but require considerable tractive power for the mole and expander to squeeze 3 inches of soil into about 3mm. Exponential increase. Metal tracklayers in those days. In general if the mole heaved at all it was set to shallow.

Can I assume you guys go back with a small 360 occasionally to trench across the line of moling to check how the moles are looking after a year or two. Quite fascinating on soils with sufficient subsoil clay content. The marine alluviums around the fen edge have too much silt and collapse after a year or so.

Need to start checking now we are saving the gps lines, one job for this winter is to get a proper program of moling in place and use dads/grandads/other people’s knowledge of the farms over the years to get a better idea of where drainage is more of an issue. We are doing quite a lot of new headland drains Also. We have done a lot of moling over the years compared to most of the neighbours but now it’s even more important with no till I want to get really organised and clear with the job.

Flat 10 · Dec 27, 2020

ajd132 said:
Need to start checking now we are saving the gps lines, one job for this winter is to get a proper program of moling in place and use dads/grandads/other people’s knowledge of the farms over the years to get a better idea of where drainage is more of an issue. We are doing quite a lot of new headland drains Also. We have done a lot of moling over the years compared to most of the neighbours but now it’s even more important with no till I want to get really organised and clear with the job.

What do you mean by headland drain please?

Hindsight · Dec 27, 2020

A useful webinar with quite a bit of basic explanation in particularly first principles. Probably to basic for most of you on here but do signpost to staff etc if wishing to give some tution.

ajd132 · Dec 28, 2020

Flat 10 said:
What do you mean by headland drain please?

New headland mains to mole into. Lots of the old ones are too near the hedge or don’t work very well anymore. Connect them to the in field scheme. It’s working well.

ConanPB · Dec 28, 2020

ajd132 said:
New headland mains to mole into. Lots of the old ones are too near the hedge or don’t work very well anymore. Connect them to the in field scheme. It’s working well.

We've done this , dug a narrow trench parallel with the hedge in front of the ditch, back filled with stone, leaving enough room for the crawler and mole plough to pass over . Beauty of this is you don't have to run empty one way as you would when moling into a ditch.

yellow belly · Dec 28, 2020

Feldspar said:
Thanks.

"warn mole which is set at too steep an angle with point down" – is "warn" a typo? Not quite sure what you mean here.

We have been using a Sumo Trio with two legs in to lift tramlines as we move from 24m to 36m tramlines. I wonder if we could use this on the tramlines where moles go across the tramlines?

What tractor do you use for moling in the crops in the spring? Do you do it when the crop is showing or before? Does it obviously damage the crops in the tractor wheelings? I don't see people doing it much around here (except for @ajd132), but is this because it works less well in cultivated systems?

Worn mole

mole after drilling before emergence with beans up to 2 weeks with barley a bit less
they tyres do very little seed damage 300 hp wheeled tractor 800 38 tyres 12 psi fully weighted 2.5 tonne on the back 1 tonne on the front
On field where we cross the tramlines we can see the line along the slot in the crop from a distance top of the hill 500 yards away
when we go in the Same direction as the drill harder to spot we do take out the controlled traffic lines first time over but are 1.25 m off 4years later when remoleing

yellow belly · Dec 28, 2020

Godber said:
Interesting point. As @ajd132 said it should not heave much at all if the moisture is there. We mole at 26inches, is that a common depth?

At 26inches you need to be sure the drains are deep enough or it will be a very expensive mistake
checking with a digger is essential do not trust the 40 year old drainage plans

yellow belly · Dec 28, 2020

Hindsight said:
From my college days 40 odd years ago we were taught that ideal time to draw a mole was Late April/May when soil surface conditions were good for traffic and soil at moling depth (22 - 26 inches) was plastic. The expanded mole with the clay pressured to form a inverted 'tile' drain would then have the dry summer and hopefully a crop above to dry and 'seal' the inside of the mole. Pulling the mole at sufficient depth (field land drains back fill gravel / stone allowing/dependent) would produce minimal surface heave, but require considerable tractive power for the mole and expander to squeeze 3 inches of soil into about 3mm. Exponential increase. Metal tracklayers in those days. In general if the mole heaved at all it was set to shallow.

Can I assume you guys go back with a small 360 occasionally to trench across the line of moling to check how the moles are looking after a year or two. Quite fascinating on soils with sufficient subsoil clay content. The marine alluviums around the fen edge have too much silt and collapse after a year or so.

I can go with a spade and find the mole slot on the surface of notill dig down to the mole
we also see a lot of mouse holes along the mole lines all helping keep the drainage working

teslacoils · Dec 28, 2020

ConanPB said:
We've done this , dug a narrow trench parallel with the hedge in front of the ditch, back filled with stone, leaving enough room for the crawler and mole plough to pass over . Beauty of this is you don't have to run empty one way as you would when moling into a ditch.

Haven't moled into a ditch in ages. Most have stewardship strips you can't mole through. Most of the time I'm moling along contours.

yellow belly · Dec 28, 2020

ConanPB said:
We've done this , dug a narrow trench parallel with the hedge in front of the ditch, back filled with stone, leaving enough room for the crawler and mole plough to pass over . Beauty of this is you don't have to run empty one way as you would when moling into a ditch.

On a few fields we have put in perpendicular drains that allow us to mole the end headland with out backing up to the
hedge
if I were to drain a field now I would get the drainer to backup to the hedge not pull out 6 m from the hedge
put spurs to the hedge so the whole field could be moled efficiently round and round for the headland
with most fields in the past the drainer drew up to the hedge and left 6 m untrained the main was often 6 m from the hedge the out side 6 m was un drained and often stands wet with out a lot of extra mole runs into the drains or the ditch
short spurs every 50 yards perpendicular into the drain or the ditch or both save a lot of moleing time

Hindsight · Dec 28, 2020

Had a look through the filing cabinet. This might be of interest. So found it online. I did have some Silsoe publications from earlier but may have been binned.

yellow belly · Dec 29, 2020

Hindsight said:
Had a look through the filing cabinet. This might be of interest. So found it online. I did have some Silsoe publications from earlier but may have been binned.

Very good read
Have you found the follow up evaluation on the lined mole system

How to mole & keep fields level in no-till?

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