Is ploughing bad ?

Farma Parma

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Northumberlandia
All my 2nd wheats are just ripped up 1st wheat stubbles with horsch terrano & ph/combi disc drilled
they did canny last year & no worse than a plough based approach
Its beating the weather at the time of year iam doing this is what its helping me with & main reason for doing so.
mind there dirtier esp on headlands later thru crop growing season than they would have been if they been ploughed
so more agchems needed, yes i'll try n do that this year & really need headlands rounduping off aswell.
i dont normally roundup wheat crops here.
 

Cowabunga

Member
Location
Ceredigion,Wales
I dunno, we have made some pretty big dents in the Ozone layer, rainforests, marine life and driven many species to extinction.
Ozone layer is as healthy as its ever been. Rainforests expand and contract over the centuries but overall global forest cover is now much greater than it has been for at least two centuries. Humans have only ever driven a very few species to extinction, the most notable being the Do-Do bird which was hunted to extinction by humans. So as usual your post is piddle.
 
Ozone layer is as healthy as its ever been. Rainforests expand and contract over the centuries but overall global forest cover is now much greater than it has been for at least two centuries. Humans have only ever driven a very few species to extinction, the most notable being the Do-Do bird which was hunted to extinction by humans. So as usual your post is piddle.

Just the Do-do?

Wow ok.

The Earth is in great shape then. Cancel that memo.
 

delilah

Member
I have converted from a plough based system to Direct drilling, having been a sworn advocate of it.
I cannot find any downsides of DD, including yield.
I did it purely for financial reasons.

I use a Weaving GD drill. This is what I have found:

One 8th of the amount of fuel used to establish a crop - win.
Reduction of 75% in time to establish a crop - win.
Reduction in Blackgrass due to not disturbing and waking up its seed between the rows - win.
Resulting in 50% of the pre-em herbicide usage - win.
No extra usage of Glyphosate needed - win.
Yields as good, often better than ploughed land - win.

Environmental:
I can drill early again, by the end of September when ALL soil conditions are ideal - win.
87.5% reduction in CO2 to establish my crops - win
IRO 2-3 tonnes per acre reduction of CO2 released from cultivated soils as bacteria breaks down OM - win.
I no longer need to roll any land after the drill - win.
No problem with FYM application. Just spread on top and drill through it - win.
Massive increase in the earthworm population - win.


Ploughing is obviously necessary where root crops are grown. But for Combinable crop, not.

Good post. re the FYM, could I ask what your stocking rate is (lsu/ha) .
 

Two Tone

Member
Mixed Farmer
Good post. re the FYM, could I ask what your stocking rate is (lsu/ha) .
Thanks.
About 120 head of beef. Indoor housed over winter. FYM, plus a few other locals that produce “Hoss-shite”, spread over about 550 acres arable. Whatever that works out at.

Our 350 or so Red Deer occupy about 120 acres PP plus some woodland, but live out all year round and spread their shite themselves!
We make their winter Haylage on 50 acres of GS4 Herb and Legume rich MT Stewardship grassland.
 

ajd132

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Suffolk
Sorry, I'm not buying the claim that cultivated soils lose more CO2 per year than they produce in straw, and almost as much as they produce in grain. I'm calling 'bulls**t!' on that one.

This is my 26th season 'making the decisions' here, and I've seen soil OM levels go from a range measuring in the high 4's and low 5's%, to high 5's and low 6's%. We're not losing carbon, we're gaining. And given that theres just shy of 2000t of topsoil to the acre*, 1% is just short of 20t of OM added.
[* - bulk density 1600kg/m2, top soil worked to 30cm, mix of ploughing and non inversion, straw retained].

The difference between the plough based systems and the DD zealots is where you're measuring the OM. Plough based is mixing it through the plough layer, DD is measuring it to what? 2"? It's the same carbon, just that DD gets to call the higher surface concentration a 'miraculous' 5% rise :facepalm:
Still no comments from the DD guys about what it actually says in the KV report, that DD is worse than ploughing for soil base emissions. Here it is again:

Humus and Ploughing

The soil humus content needs to be preserved. When evaluating the impact on the humus content of different crop establishment systems, the results are clear: non tillage and reduced tillage techniques do not have any positive effect on humus establishment.

In more than 100 field studies conducted in Germany, analysing the entire soil profile, the Thünen Institute concluded: crop establishment systems without tillage result in a far lower storage of carbon per ha and year. In many studies, there was even a loss of humus.
Source: Thünen Report Nr. 64, November 2018, page 194ff

An explanation is given by Dr. Axel Don, Thünen Institute: “Humus derives from root and crop residues as well as from organic fertilisers such as manure and slurry. It enters the soil mainly from top. Without the reversal tillage with a plough, the newly formed humus remains close to the surface and is not mixed into the topsoil evenly. And there is an additional negative effect: without loosening the soil, there is a likelihood for increased microbial nitrate decomposition and higher nitrous oxide emissions (N20) . This gas is 300 times more harmful to the climate than CO2.”

Similar results and conclusions are also showed in a pan European study called “Catch C Project”
Why would we only measure OM from the surface? You just appear to be making things up.
 

Timbo1080

Member
BASE UK Member
Location
Somerset
Historically, our plough established crops were crap, used epic amounts of slug pellets, heroic amounts of chemicals & stupid amounts of diesel, way more machinery and time, with a narrow window for drilling & very little wearing metal.
Scratch Til crops were good, regular slug pellet use, about the same chemical use as ploughing, far less time and diesel, very little wearing metal, and a slightly wider drilling window over ploughing (generally due to being able to drill much faster).
Our No-Til crops are very good by comparison, we very seldom use pellets, have often not used pre-ems, can drill during all months of the year, use about 2/3rs the volume of Glyphosate as we did when ploughing. We no longer have a rotation…..we just drill whatever is appropriate for the specific field at the time. We would never have used 2nd wheats when we ploughed, but, as it happens, this year we have some 3rd, 5th and a 7th wheat. Never seen take all (yet?!), and never had a Mycotoxin problem. But we do have a very high %age of Clay, and it would appear to be pretty fungal.
I’m happy carry on as I am. Still have a plough, but only use it on contracted land if a customer demands it, which is rare.
I’m not sure that the article salesman know the difference between humus, specifically, and the general term of Organic Matter.
As AJD mentioned….why would anyone change the sampling methodology dependant on the system?! Bizarre.
Soil pits here, also show significantly greater root mass (by visual assessment), at far greater depths than under the plough.
As mentioned also, before….A Shite plough based system can yield different results to a good one, and likewise with No-Til, or any other system. The world is littered with examples of every single system being better than all others.
That’s what I find so enjoyable about farming….there are so many ways to skin a cat, and it’s up to you to do as you see fit.

Out of interest, if the KV article said that ploughing is the worst thing in the world, would you believe it? And would you change anything as a result?
 

ajd132

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Suffolk
Historically, our plough established crops were crap, used epic amounts of slug pellets, heroic amounts of chemicals & stupid amounts of diesel, way more machinery and time, with a narrow window for drilling & very little wearing metal.
Scratch Til crops were good, regular slug pellet use, about the same chemical use as ploughing, far less time and diesel, very little wearing metal, and a slightly wider drilling window over ploughing (generally due to being able to drill much faster).
Our No-Til crops are very good by comparison, we very seldom use pellets, have often not used pre-ems, can drill during all months of the year, use about 2/3rs the volume of Glyphosate as we did when ploughing. We no longer have a rotation…..we just drill whatever is appropriate for the specific field at the time. We would never have used 2nd wheats when we ploughed, but, as it happens, this year we have some 3rd, 5th and a 7th wheat. Never seen take all (yet?!), and never had a Mycotoxin problem. But we do have a very high %age of Clay, and it would appear to be pretty fungal.
I’m happy carry on as I am. Still have a plough, but only use it on contracted land if a customer demands it, which is rare.
I’m not sure that the article salesman know the difference between humus, specifically, and the general term of Organic Matter.
As AJD mentioned….why would anyone change the sampling methodology dependant on the system?! Bizarre.
Soil pits here, also show significantly greater root mass (by visual assessment), at far greater depths than under the plough.
As mentioned also, before….A Shite plough based system can yield different results to a good one, and likewise with No-Til, or any other system. The world is littered with examples of every single system being better than all others.
That’s what I find so enjoyable about farming….there are so many ways to skin a cat, and it’s up to you to do as you see fit.

Out of interest, if the KV article said that ploughing is the worst thing in the world, would you believe it? And would you change anything as a result?
You see it on twitter or drilling pages on Facebook. The most half arsed single year attempt at no till, the only thing within the whole system they change is lack of whatever plough or cultivation they usually do, nothing else even considered. Turns out poorly. Blame the system rather than how they managed it then say to everyone possible how it doesn’t work.
 

PSQ

Member
Arable Farmer
Why would we only measure OM from the surface? You just appear to be making things up.

FFS, go and read the report that this thread is based on, it's there in black and white, albeit in German. You'll get the gist from the graph where it shows higher concentration of organic carbon (C org) closer to the surface in the 'Direct Seed' (direksaat), but a larger area of carbon throughout the plough (pflug) layer and beyond.

Figure 3-49: Distribution of the carbon in the soil profile with reduced (no-till) compared to conventional (turning) tillage

Screen Shot 2021-11-25 at 15.40.58.png
 

ajd132

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Suffolk
FFS, go and read the report that this thread is based on, it's there in black and white, albeit in German. You'll get the gist from the graph where it shows higher concentration of organic carbon (C org) closer to the surface in the 'Direct Seed' (direksaat), but a larger area of carbon throughout the plough (pflug) layer and beyond.

Figure 3-49: Distribution of the carbon in the soil profile with reduced (no-till) compared to conventional (turning) tillage

View attachment 999587
there is nothing new there, we know if concentrates it in the surface, we don't test the top inch and ignore the rest like you were inferring.
anyone who claims their OM has risen more than 0.1% in whatever system is bullshitting. so much flawed testing going on i agree.
i didnt realise ploughing mixed it through the soil profile, i thought the point of ploughing was inversion so surely the sampling methodology is equally at risk of picking up higher concentrations but instead of a concentration on the surface there is a concentration at that years plough depth?doesn't a non inversion cultivator mix it through the profile? i would be confused if a plough salesman was selling me a plough claiming that it will fully invert the soil burying weed seeds whilst also spreading OM throughout the whole soil profile?
 

PSQ

Member
Arable Farmer
The part of the report referred to by the OP, with the bit saying DD claims are often inflated highlighted and underlined:

https://www.thuenen.de/media/institute/ak/Allgemein/news/Thuenen_Report_64_final.pdf

194 Results and Discussion Chapter 3
3.2.10.3 Management of arable land: tillage
Reduced tillage
In this report, reduced tillage refers to all methods without the use of turning plows. The following crop type is sown into the lightly tilled mulch layer (mulch seed) or directly into the unworked soil (no-till). These methods are widespread in the USA and South America with 40 to 50% of the arable land (Derpsch et al. 2010). No-till is currently still uncommon in Germany. However, more and more farmers are converting to non-turning soil cultivation: the evaluation of the questionnaires on the cultivation of arable land in the BZE-LW (see Chapter 2.3) showed that 18% of the sampling points in the period under review were due to a turning soil. processing was completely dispensed with. Reduced tillage can help improve the soil structure and reduce the risk of erosion, and it also reduces diesel consumption. However, the effect of reduced tillage on the Corg supply in the soil was often overestimated (Baker et al. 2007, Powlson et al. 2014). While Corg enrichment occurs on the soil surface with reduced tillage, the Corg content decreases in the depths of the arable tops below (Figure 3-49). In the entire soil profile, the Corg supply in the soil often hardly differs between the different soil cultivation variants.
In a meta-analysis of long-term field tests in the temperate climatic zone, taking into account the total depth of the crumb, we found an average of “only” +0.15 ± 0.11 t Corg ha-1 a-1 Corg stock enrichment (mean and standard deviation from 86 studies, 0-46 ± 22 cm depth) with no-till methods without tillage compared to conventional tillage (Figure 3-50 left). In most of the studies, prior use was conventional tillage before the start of the experiment. Many studies also showed corg losses from the soil, so the accumulation was not significant. Likewise, due to reduced soil tillage (mulch sowing) in long-term tests (> 30 years) there was no significant change in the Corg stock with + 0.16 ± 0.10 t Corg ha-1 a-1 compared to conventional tillage (mean and Standard deviation from 36 studies; 0-37 ± 13 cm depth; Figure 3-50 right).


Figure 3-49: Distribution of the carbon in the soil profile with reduced (no-till) compared to conventional (turning) tillage

Screen Shot 2021-11-25 at 15.40.58.png


Figure 3-50: Change in the supply of organic carbon (Corg) in the topsoil (mean: 0-29.7 cm) after the introduction of no-till (left, 86 field studies, 0-46 ± 22 cm depth) or mulch sowing (right , 36 field studies, 0-37 ± 13 cm depth) compared to a reference treatment variant with conventional
processing (plow)

Screen Shot 2021-11-25 at 16.02.55.png
 

Cowabunga

Member
Location
Ceredigion,Wales
Just look at Wikipedia fir a list. From A to Z. It lists them all. Man is the biggest predator on the plane and has polluted with so much his rubbish that more species and struggling every day. Out of sight and out of mind for many.
No, I'm asking for specific species that have been eliminated through the act of humans. If there that many, perhaps you could list the top five eliminated by human activity in the last, say, fifty years? An easy enough job for you, surely.
 

ajd132

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Suffolk
The part of the report referred to by the OP, with the bit saying DD claims are often inflated highlighted and underlined:

https://www.thuenen.de/media/institute/ak/Allgemein/news/Thuenen_Report_64_final.pdf

194 Results and Discussion Chapter 3
3.2.10.3 Management of arable land: tillage
Reduced tillage
In this report, reduced tillage refers to all methods without the use of turning plows. The following crop type is sown into the lightly tilled mulch layer (mulch seed) or directly into the unworked soil (no-till). These methods are widespread in the USA and South America with 40 to 50% of the arable land (Derpsch et al. 2010). No-till is currently still uncommon in Germany. However, more and more farmers are converting to non-turning soil cultivation: the evaluation of the questionnaires on the cultivation of arable land in the BZE-LW (see Chapter 2.3) showed that 18% of the sampling points in the period under review were due to a turning soil. processing was completely dispensed with. Reduced tillage can help improve the soil structure and reduce the risk of erosion, and it also reduces diesel consumption. However, the effect of reduced tillage on the Corg supply in the soil was often overestimated (Baker et al. 2007, Powlson et al. 2014). While Corg enrichment occurs on the soil surface with reduced tillage, the Corg content decreases in the depths of the arable tops below (Figure 3-49). In the entire soil profile, the Corg supply in the soil often hardly differs between the different soil cultivation variants.
In a meta-analysis of long-term field tests in the temperate climatic zone, taking into account the total depth of the crumb, we found an average of “only” +0.15 ± 0.11 t Corg ha-1 a-1 Corg stock enrichment (mean and standard deviation from 86 studies, 0-46 ± 22 cm depth) with no-till methods without tillage compared to conventional tillage (Figure 3-50 left). In most of the studies, prior use was conventional tillage before the start of the experiment. Many studies also showed corg losses from the soil, so the accumulation was not significant. Likewise, due to reduced soil tillage (mulch sowing) in long-term tests (> 30 years) there was no significant change in the Corg stock with + 0.16 ± 0.10 t Corg ha-1 a-1 compared to conventional tillage (mean and Standard deviation from 36 studies; 0-37 ± 13 cm depth; Figure 3-50 right).


Figure 3-49: Distribution of the carbon in the soil profile with reduced (no-till) compared to conventional (turning) tillage

View attachment 999588

Figure 3-50: Change in the supply of organic carbon (Corg) in the topsoil (mean: 0-29.7 cm) after the introduction of no-till (left, 86 field studies, 0-46 ± 22 cm depth) or mulch sowing (right , 36 field studies, 0-37 ± 13 cm depth) compared to a reference treatment variant with conventional
processing (plow)

View attachment 999590
Is there any work to say at what depth OM is most useful to plants and biology at?
 

PSQ

Member
Arable Farmer
Why would we only measure OM from the surface? You just appear to be making things up.


Is there any work to say at what depth OM is most useful to plants and biology at?

You could have said "sorry for being a bit of a pr*ck", but instead you've chosen to double down on your piety. Keep digging adj, you must be getting close to the bottom of the hole by now... :facepalm:
 
All my 2nd wheats are just ripped up 1st wheat stubbles with horsch terrano & ph/combi disc drilled
they did canny last year & no worse than a plough based approach
Its beating the weather at the time of year iam doing this is what its helping me with & main reason for doing so.
mind there dirtier esp on headlands later thru crop growing season than they would have been if they been ploughed
so more agchems needed, yes i'll try n do that this year & really need headlands rounduping off aswell.
i dont normally roundup wheat crops here.

Dirtier with what weeds?
 

ajd132

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Suffolk
You could have said "sorry for being a bit of a pr*ck", but instead you've chosen to double down on your piety. Keep digging adj, you must be getting close to the bottom of the hole by now... :facepalm:
What? I’m asking a question. Why are you getting so upset? Your replies are confusing.
 

PSQ

Member
Arable Farmer
What? I’m asking a question. Why are you getting so upset? Your replies are confusing.
There is nothing confusing about this in the slightest. You accused me of making “making stuff up” in post 47, I showed you the evidence presented in the OP’s quoted report which found that DD doesn’t capture any more carbon in soils that ploughing, and now your trying to ‘save face’.
 

Humble Village Farmer

Member
BASE UK Member
Location
Essex
No, I'm asking for specific species that have been eliminated through the act of humans. If there that many, perhaps you could list the top five eliminated by human activity in the last, say, fifty years? An easy enough job for you, surely.
Well you have heard of woolly mammoths

In the first couple of thousand years after humans got to Australia, something like 23 of the 25 biggest animal had died out. Something similar in Madagascar where multiple species died off after the advent of humans; but South America had the most dramatic loss of some fantastic mega fauna. All evidenced by subsequent fossil finds.

Wolves, lynx, beaver most recently in the uk Aurochs before that.
 

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