Would you drill into this..........?

Simon C · Oct 17, 2016

@Timbo1080
I have drilled into this sort of stuff several times. After any other crop I run over with the rake to fill the cracks a bit and help the surface to absorb any moisture, rather than letting it all go down below. Where I strip linseed, the rake won't go so I have to just accept what is there. I usually find that by the time there has been enough rain to make enough soil to drill into, the cracks have pretty well closed. Even where they haven't closed, the drill will fill and cover a surprising amount, without loosing much seed down too deep and afterwards, you will wonder what you were worried about.

You say it is not practical at the moment, but I always take my selection of drills into any difficult fields without seed and see what they actually do, they often don't do what you are expecting.

yellow belly · Oct 18, 2016

here I would have had it drilled a week or two ago
if the surface stays dry the bg would not germinate till it rained and activated a preem spray which is very effective in an uncultivated system much higher control rates than recorded in a cultivated trial
the drilled crop would grow with a light rain if drilled with a disc drill with plenty of weight on the press wheels at a slow speed

clbarclay · Oct 18, 2016

Timbo1080 said:
Do you think that the increased seedrate will just bulk up the areas that the seed doesn't fall down, and the cracked areas will still be bare? Or do you think that the increased seedrate will hopefully amount to some growing in the cracks?

Where the coulters cross cracks, I reckon the rows should butt up well, but in places the coulters will inevitably run along cracks and these could end up looking like short stretches of partially blocked coulters if the cracks close up before the seed can grow out of them. On balance it ought to produce a crop, but might not be that pretty.

Timbo1080 · Oct 18, 2016

Thank you all for your replies, and sorry for the delayed responses....they have uncovered a lot of further questions that I'm still processing, AND have given me the direction to just get on and drill it.

Will be drilling it (all being well), on Friday, before the next forecast weather event.

I'll apologise in advance for the deluge of questions that will follow...some of which are slightly off topic, but have been provoked by your responses.

Thanks again,

Tim

Timbo1080 · Oct 19, 2016

The going is now "Soft", with no closure of cracks to talk of. Plenty of tilth. Should I be prepared with the rollers if I can roll?

Timbo1080 · Oct 20, 2016

So, it's drilled....this is the visual result :

And here's the seed placement :

And the finish :

So would you roll?

Seed is well firmed & covered.....

Timbo1080 · Oct 20, 2016

Simon C said:
@Timbo1080
I usually find that by the time there has been enough rain to make enough soil to drill into, the cracks have pretty well closed.

One of the questions....What do you mean by this? Do you find that you generally have no soil/tilth to drill into, until you have had some rain? Is this generally only after Linseed, or is it a characteristic of your soil? Has it become less or more of a problem since you have been Zero-tilling? It's probably a silly question, but has confounded me since you posted it!

Timbo1080 · Oct 20, 2016

yellow belly said:
here I would have had it drilled a week or two ago
if the surface stays dry the bg would not germinate till it rained and activated a preem spray which is very effective in an uncultivated system much higher control rates than recorded in a cultivated trial
the drilled crop would grow with a light rain if drilled with a disc drill with plenty of weight on the press wheels at a slow speed

And another question/response....

I would have been happy to have drilled this several weeks ago as I'm confident that there was plenty of moisture to have allowed the wheat to grow, but was uncertain about the cracks. The tilth on top was dry, as you'd expect, but it would've been no problem for the drill to have cut into the soil below.

In this scenario, there has been plenty of moisture to allow any (of which there is little) Blackgrass to grow....indeed, it has been over the last month or so, growing quite happily. Would you associate the pictures to be of rock hard, bone dry ground, as this is not the case, merely a consequence of growing the Linseed.

Cracks aside, I was not happy to drill this earlier, as the opportunity arose (weather) to leave it later & catch any further Blackgrass, while still being able to use the 750A. Furthermore, I felt that since the tilth was so dry, the pre-Ems would not be activated. Is this a characteristic of this land that I need to get used to? I.e. Being relatively light ground, should I accept that although I will be drilling here later, albeit with the risk of non weather related problems (Pumping station getting switched on, and it flooding ), this is a common problem that I will have (Dry top for poor pre-em, excellent moisture below for continual Blackgrass emergence, and effing great cracks). Do you have this problem often? Or is it just the oddity of this soil?
Not even sure that I've asked a question, but there's something there that I want to ask...not sure I've quite figured out the question yet! Sorry!

Big smile was put on my face though, when you said "much higher control rates than recorded in a cultivated trial", as we'd just drilled some wheat into some heavy land on the home farm, that I'd rather have left until later, but was worried about the weather window shutting. Bit more Blackgrass in that bit, so will be interesting to see how the pre-ems work v cultivated...

Timbo1080 · Oct 20, 2016

clbarclay said:
While it looks to be cracked all over, what % of the surface is actually cracks?

As a quick guess it looks like less than 10% so you could drill it and just up the rate accordingly to allow for the seed lost down cracks.

I have had some soil looking like that and the limiting issue was when it was that dry the disc drill just couldn't penetrate far enough. I have had only 1/4" disc depth before with a unidrill with as much weight as possible on its discs.

It's become apparent to me that pictures can be quite deceptive. It's pretty light stuff, and although the tilth was bone dry, the soil below had a nice bit of moisture (Or, at least enough moisture for a wheat seed to grow). So the ground was never hard enough to stop the 750A from cutting into it. We did, however, go with full pressure.....As didn't see a problem occurring if it happened to be more than we needed. Glad it's drilled now (little bit to finish tomorrow), will just have to see how it comes up...and watch it through the winter, and into the spring, and summer, and then make a decision when I've got the weighbridge tickets!

shakerator · Oct 21, 2016

that will look great in 6 weeks

autumn 2011 was like that here- with perfect establishment and minimal slug pressure

ollie989898 · Oct 24, 2016

I was going to say, rake it to fill in the cracks, drill, then roll, and roll again if you are bored.

If seed:soil contact is good, the stuff will be away long before the wet and slugs arrive.

Timbo1080 · Oct 25, 2016

Seed to soil contact was excellent & the wheat will I'm sure romp away. The concern was whether the cracks will sufficiently reduce the number of plants, which, on reflection was, as said previously, only about 10% at a guess. We've had 2 inches now & there's no significant difference in the cracks, but I'm glad I've drilled it, as we'll be starting the main of our first wheats now.

I have a massive bugbear about disturbing the soil so close to drilling, or indeed afterwards, especially in the autumn...hence, why I wouldn't want to rake either before of afterwards. Indeed, I get frustrated that the drill has to disturb more than is necessary (Again hence why we've never used a cultivator type drill like the Rapid etc).
I'm hoping that the worry was of cosmetic concern, rather than something that might disproportionately translate to yield.

I've got my fingers crossed, but the bloody fields will probably flood anyway!

Tim

SimonD · Oct 25, 2016

Looks good Tim, sure it will be away soon enough.

Timbo1080 · Nov 23, 2016

No pre-em & no pellets....don't think there are many cracks left either now....

Thanks for all the advice.

chickens and wheat · Nov 23, 2016

Ah yes my type of farming now, wait, ponder, act decisively then let the river take it all.

a bit of manganese early spring and you will never know it flooded,

Andrew K · Nov 23, 2016

Sorry to see that, hopefully dry for a few days looking forward.

SimonD · Nov 23, 2016

Not ideal Tim......

Hopefully it survives over winter or will it remain waterlogged? How have you found the drill otherwise?

ollie989898 · Nov 23, 2016

I've had that happen to crops before, provided the water buggers off quickly, you will never know the field had flooded. Be ready with manganese and AN in the spring. Not urea.

Timbo1080 · Nov 23, 2016

SimonD said:
Not ideal Tim......

Hopefully it survives over winter or will it remain waterlogged? How have you found the drill otherwise?

The flooding happens every year-although it isn't natural. The fields in question will drain within the next 3 days, provided that there isn't more rain (which looks true), and the artificial flood manufacturing (the pumping station) plant doesn't get illegally turned on.

Generally, the crop will be fine, so long as the aforementioned doesn't happen, AND the lapwing & ducks etc don't decide to take up residence & puddle it to hell.

Very glad that we didn't pre-emerge spray, or use pellets.

The other common problem is any chaff/straw accumulating in the low spots once the flood has subsided. Fortunately this year, the wheat is in behind Linseed, so that shouldn't be a problem.

The drill is as expected-which is a huge relief. One factor that I didn't realise, is the slug damage preventing firming wheel. It would appear that the firming wheel presses the seed in so well, that the slugs can't get to either end, so don't have the opportunity to hollow it our....brilliant!

SimonD said:
Looks like some great ground, would love to have some like that.
Let me know when you're drilling if possible as it would be interesting to see how the drill gets on with new ground. I know yr2 is a lot easier than yr1.

Do you still wish that you had some land like this?

I must come and have a look at your Rape-how are the roots looking?

Timbo1080 · Nov 23, 2016

ollie989898 said:
I've had that happen to crops before, provided the water buggers off quickly, you will never know the field had flooded. Be ready with manganese and AN in the spring. Not urea.

Thanks Ollie, regular as clockwork here, although we're hopefully getting on top of it. Generally, rightly or wrongly, use manganese at most opportunities, and yes, absolutely to the Fert-only really use liquid AN/AS, although used to melt our own urea, until we stupidly sold our melting plant.....

Would you drill into this..........?

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