Will No till put paid to the plough ? asks a piece in the FT.

Farma Parma · Jan 31, 2024

Clive said:
to use your analogy there is nothing wrong in buying a 100k car if you can afford a 100k car

just maybe the reason i can afford 100k car is because i don’t spend my money on fuel and metal ?

i don’t zero till for fun - i do it because on my farm it’s far more profitable and has been for 16yrs now

each to their own though - it’s not compulsory and i’ve noticed the ones most obsessed with no till are farmers who cultivate ? ……. why is that ?

I wasnt having a go at anyone with my thoughts & cert not yourself Clive.
Type of Land n climate generally isnt suited to a DD system up here if it was id be seeing it & iam not.
Not saying this wont change tho, there is a few Direct Drills apearing but in most cases all there sowing is cover crops & being utilized by the bigger boys as it 6m versions & grant funded.
For 2023 harvest i was only 50% ploughed based system,the rest ripped up with a cultivator but had to increase that i little bit for current year.
Looking ahead it will again be a balance of both. Plus finally some single pass OSR est on this farm for the first time
it might clear its feet or might not is the awkward one tho.
Each to there own with fancy Cars id rather use the ££ for other things & not always diesel or metal neither

Spud · Jan 31, 2024

Two Tone said:
There is no doubt that a it wasn’t an easy Autumn to Direct Drill crops in ’23.
Here, we have had 22” of rain with 10 storms from the beginning of September until now.
Our normal annual rainfall is 28”.

However, looking at many DD’d crops now in a normal year, often wouldn’t inspire those who aren’t used to the technique, especially where a very low disturbance Drill was used into the previous crop’s stubble.

It’ll still look like a stubble field with something green growing at the bottom of it until March. At which point that something green will grow out of the top of the stubble.

The problem comes on certain sizes of farm when you have to decide which type of drilling technique you are going for, because you can’t afford to have, or run both types.
Not so much because of the machinery costs, but for the Labour to be able to operate a conventional system.
This is exactly the boat I am in.

We drill a bit under 600ac a year, about half that is our own.

I have 5 drills!

2015 3m Pottinger combi on ADD discs bought new for £26k and the drill I'd keep if I could only have one - drills wheat after potatoes, sometimes second wheat, oats after beet, winter barley after wheat.
1996 4m Amazone combi on suffolks (box drill) bought in a sale for £4k in 2011 - drills nurse barley before sugar beet and very occasionally spring barley on ploughed beet land
2022 3m Mzuri Protil - bought with a grant, saved a lot of dosh on cultivation and time. Brilliant for first wheats and beans
2003 4m Vaderstad Rapid - bought for £3200 to sow 300ac of cover crops, also sows spring oats into covers and this year drilled the winter barley after wheat
2007 6m KRM tine drill - recent acquisition - only drilled 5ac second wheat with it so far. £3700 its cheap capacity

All would last a very long time if they had to

Cultivation kit is extensive due to root crops,but includes:

Two Tone said:
Not only heavy, by the looks of that photo, but at the bottom of the field that looks like it has flooded at some if not several times.
I’d suggest that if that field was DD’d then the bit you have lost in will cost less in losses that the cost to have Conventionally planted it.

But that is only an observation on a bit of land I don’t know.

If we all knew what the long term weather forecast would be, then farming any land Conventionally or DD would be easy.
We must DD earlier in the Autumn to make sue the soil conditions and better to get the new crop of to a start.

NEVER try DDing for the first time with a Spring crop, on anything other than light, free draining land.
Chances are that the soil conditions needed are won’t be great, as no cultivations won’t have dried the soil out or conditioned it to get the seed away well enough.
Spring Barley is a numbers of plants game. Unless you have enough, you will be disappointed.

We DD more spring crops than anything else.
Started with spring oats in 2013 after the desperate wet 2012
Then strip til wheat after the oats
Then winter beans with a freshly acquired Kockerling tine drill (good starting point with hindsight)
Now the only truly direct drilled crop is spring oats. Strip til wheat and beans. Occasional strip or direct 2nd or 3rd barleys

Clive · Jan 31, 2024

BrianV said:
Isn’t the problem that zealots give the impression that it’s a one size fits all, every farm is slightly different & where as purely arable farms with suitable soil can get away with DD for so long others with different soils & types of farming will always need a plough.
We are a livestock farm growing 100 acres of cereals plus kale in rotation & use both DD & a plough.
What I dislike is stupid fools giving the impression to the naive general public that any farmer with a plough is some kind of eco criminal.

i’ve met very few (if any) no till farmers who believe “one size fits all”

i think this is an utter myth

ajd132 · Jan 31, 2024

lloyd said:
Honest post from one of the best dd on here .

And it’s worth adding I cannot get spring crops to work consistently in no till on this soil. I cultivate with a topdown to about 3-4 inches and broadcast a cover crop at the same time. It dries out much quicker and leaves a much better seedbed for the spring crops.
No till can work in the spring but is very reliant on the weather being perfect, which isn’t very often!

Spud · Jan 31, 2024

BrianV said:
Isn’t the problem that zealots give the impression that it’s a one size fits all, every farm is slightly different & where as purely arable farms with suitable soil can get away with DD for so long others with different soils & types of farming will always need a plough.
We are a livestock farm growing 100 acres of cereals plus kale in rotation & use both DD & a plough.
What I dislike is stupid fools giving the impression to the naive general public that any farmer with a plough is some kind of eco criminal.

Part of the issue is some people think if they ditch cultivation and buy a shiny drill all will be perfect.
Bit more to it than that!

Derrick Hughes · Jan 31, 2024

Spud said:
Part of the issue is some people think if they ditch cultivation and buy a shiny drill all will be perfect.
Bit more to it than that!

Spot on
Or get a contractor in a refuse to listen or do what he says

Spud · Jan 31, 2024

Two Tone said:
There is no doubt that a it wasn’t an easy Autumn to Direct Drill crops in ’23.
Here, we have had 22” of rain with 10 storms from the beginning of September until now.
Our normal annual rainfall is 28”.

However, looking at many DD’d crops now in a normal year, often wouldn’t inspire those who aren’t used to the technique, especially where a very low disturbance Drill was used into the previous crop’s stubble.

It’ll still look like a stubble field with something green growing at the bottom of it until March. At which point that something green will grow out of the top of the stubble.

The problem comes on certain sizes of farm when you have to decide which type of drilling technique you are going for, because you can’t afford to have, or run both types.
Not so much because of the machinery costs, but for the Labour to be able to operate a conventional system.
This is exactly the boat I am in.

We drill a bit under 600ac a year, about half that is our own.

I have 5 drills!

2015 3m Pottinger combi on ADD discs bought new for £26k and the drill I'd keep if I could only have one - drills wheat after potatoes, sometimes second wheat, oats after beet, winter barley after wheat.
1996 4m Amazone combi on suffolks (box drill) bought in a sale for £4k in 2011 - drills nurse barley before sugar beet and very occasionally spring barley on ploughed beet land
2022 3m Mzuri Protil - bought with a grant, saved a lot of dosh on cultivation and time. Brilliant for first wheats and beans
2003 4m Vaderstad Rapid - bought for £3200 to sow 300ac of cover crops, also sows spring oats into covers and this year drilled the winter barley after wheat
2007 6m KRM tine drill - recent acquisition - only drilled 5ac second wheat with it so far. £3700 its cheap capacity

All would last a very long time if they had to

Cultivation kit is extensive due to root crops,but includes:

7f KV wagon plough
5f Ovlac plough
Shakerator now with metcalfe legs and discerator packer
2.6m Flatlift with discs
4m Simba SL
3m Simba TL
3m Zagroda TL alike
3m Flexicoil double press with tines
6m trailed Vibroflex
4m triple k
5m dyna drive
3m Kuhn power harrow with Lemken dolomite in front

We've had some of these a long time, some are a bit overkill and some hardly do enough to justify keeping them, but we're at least in a position where we don't need to buy any cultivation kit in these current crazy times - it also gives us capacity

lloyd · Jan 31, 2024

No one can argue that dd isn't the fastest and most efficient use of machinery ,labour ,diesel
but the idea that it should be rewarded as a superior environmental method is just laughable and
highly flawed.

som farmer · Jan 31, 2024

Martin Holden said:
What about weed control though. If chemicals are restricted (and very likelihood they will be) then somehow weeds and volunteers will be a big issue. Maybe cover crops are an answer but not the curates egg???

that's why it changes the debate.
hopefully something will replace it. Otherwise...........

l don't know the answer, having farmed pre round-up, it is a marvellous chemical, changed farming, simple as that. Gramoxone, or reglone, were just desiccant's.

but, continuous ploughing does alter soil structure, it brings up weed seeds etc, damages soil biology.

min/no til, has been practiced in other countries across the globe, we have to examine how they manage, and see if we can learn from them.

perhaps a reduction in frequency in ploughing, is a partial solution.

Henarar · Jan 31, 2024

I see on another thread that @Kiwi Pete has been seeding the fields using nothing it will be interesting to see the results.

ajd132 · Jan 31, 2024

som farmer said:
that's why it changes the debate.
hopefully something will replace it. Otherwise...........

l don't know the answer, having farmed pre round-up, it is a marvellous chemical, changed farming, simple as that. Gramoxone, or reglone, were just desiccant's.

but, continuous ploughing does alter soil structure, it brings up weed seeds etc, damages soil biology.

min/no til, has been practiced in other countries across the globe, we have to examine how they manage, and see if we can learn from them.

perhaps a reduction in frequency in ploughing, is a partial solution.

Our local leading organic farmer seems to have loads of weeds despite ploughing and inter row hoeing. I am not sure any conventional farmer can afford a organic weed control system in the absence of chemicals but on a conventional grain pricing model!

som farmer · Jan 31, 2024

like many others, we played around with dd, back in the 70's, mainly on grass, and we didn't get on with it, not actually sure we gave it a fair go, we thought nothing would replace the plough, and of course, it failed, back with the plough.

fast forward 40+years, the kit, and knowledge is better than before, but you have to keep an open mind, not just assume it won't work, attitude like that, it won't. One big problem we have today, which we didn't have in the 70's, is the shear weight of kit we use, and the resultant cost of the modern kit.

advantages of min/no til, are obviously less kit, less fuel, time etc, the less obvious are improved soil structure, biology etc, which help to build soil fertility etc.

but at the end of the day, you will do what you want to do, neither system is perfect. But one does have potential financial benefits over the other.

Vader · Jan 31, 2024

Spud said:
Gravity
Low spot floods off in a wet winter
No shock there

Behind me the land sloped back up in the other direction, all the same heavy land, no crop. Just took photo there to show boundary.
We have fields totally on a slope. The clay band across it has no crop. No flooding on those fields. Simply to much water can do drain away fast enough on the heavy land so it's rotted.
First time it's ever happened. But old man says it's the longedt the soil been wettest in his lifetime.

Derrick Hughes · Jan 31, 2024

I think it's the knowledge that's the key,not the kit
ICI farms were direct drilling kale back in the 70s with fantastic results.
But not many toook much notice at the time ,
It's tragic that Maff and ICI shut down those experimental farms, they were doing such great wwork which was a massive help to farming

Vader · Jan 31, 2024

som farmer said:
like many others, we played around with dd, back in the 70's, mainly on grass, and we didn't get on with it, not actually sure we gave it a fair go, we thought nothing would replace the plough, and of course, it failed, back with the plough.

fast forward 40+years, the kit, and knowledge is better than before, but you have to keep an open mind, not just assume it won't work, attitude like that, it won't. One big problem we have today, which we didn't have in the 70's, is the shear weight of kit we use, and the resultant cost of the modern kit.

advantages of min/no til, are obviously less kit, less fuel, time etc, the less obvious are improved soil structure, biology etc, which help to build soil fertility etc.

but at the end of the day, you will do what you want to do, neither system is perfect. But one does have potential financial benefits over the other.

Think short term tenancy can effect thinking as well. If you on a 5 year 1 that might not be renewed then your not going to do a system that gives you a yield loss first couple of years of the 5.

Derrick Hughes · Jan 31, 2024

Screenshot_20240131_104712_Samsung Notes.jpg

I've seen farmers in recent years with a 30 k drill direct drilling grass seed straight into that and expecting it to grow , thus farmer has got the knowledge

Spud · Jan 31, 2024

Derrick Hughes said:
View attachment 1161703
I've seen farmers in recent years with a 30 k drill direct drilling grass seed straight into that and expecting it to grow , thus farmer has got the knowledge

Thats a very good idea! A bit #holdmybeer but good nonetheless

Woody j · Jan 31, 2024

alot on here are saying one advantage of min/no till is less kit , thats not what im seeing as anyone i see going down that route still has a plough ,power harrow ,drill ect plus all equipment associated with min/no till

SilliamWhale · Jan 31, 2024

Vader said:
Possible, but we did not get grass weed problem while organic. Know of at least 1 DD farmer who had no grass weed problem untill went DD.

Mainly because organic was mixed farming.

Mixed farming is best but for those who are arable and continuously ploughing you are losing soil fertility to erosion. We've lost loads of soil in the past 100 years.

The market doesn't seem to want to pay for organic

Vader · Jan 31, 2024

SilliamWhale said:
Mainly because organic was mixed farming.

Mixed farming is best but for those who are arable and continuously ploughing you are losing soil fertility to erosion. We've lost loads of soil in the past 100 years.

The market doesn't seem to want to pay for organic

We were purely arable organic. No stock in the system.

How do you know you lost loads of soil in the past 100years?

Will No till put paid to the plough ? asks a piece in the FT.

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