Plough to no till

North East Crofter

Member
BASIS
Location
Aberdeenshire
Is it possible to switch from a plough/combi drill to no till crop establishment or are you better doing min till for a couple o years. Were in the NE of Scotland with hardly anyone using no till, there is a couple min till but they are few and far between. Soil type is loam no clay mainly spring barley cover crops will be sown after next harvest

Sandy

Attempting to get into the AECS scheme at the moment and as part of that looking at the green manure option and was going to trial a bit of direct drilling/strip tilling on this if I can track down a contractor or ringlink with a drill, on a pretty small acreage here but willing to give it a go as structure in the soil has been getting poorer over the years, I may need to invest in drainage in some areas as well to get the best out of it.
 

SimonD

Member
Location
Dorset
We went from plough to min till using a Sumo Trio and the soil structure has improved significantly from that alone, this has been done for 5 years and we are starting DD using a disk drill. I don't think we could have gone straight to no-till without the improvement to soil structure that min-till has brought.
 

Sandy

Member
Location
Aberdeenshire
We went from plough to min till using a Sumo Trio and the soil structure has improved significantly from that alone, this has been done for 5 years and we are starting DD using a disk drill. I don't think we could have gone straight to no-till without the improvement to soil structure that min-till has brought.
What drill do you use with a Sumo?
 

SimonD

Member
Location
Dorset
CO4 and a Rapide. Out soil is very light, previously ploughed and ex spud ground, it improved by taking out both if those factors and introducing min-till.
 

Dan Powell

Member
Location
Shropshire
I remember asking a similar question to the OP on the other place and the legendary Elmstead suggested I should just go for it.

He was right. No need to phase it in on medium soils but if you have a pan you may need to subsoil.

Mintill will get your fields nice and flat though which can be an advantage when using a simple tine direct drill.
 

agricontract

Member
Location
Merseyside
Don't really want a claydon after seeing the crops from one I've seen I think some form of a deeper tine in front of the seed to take all the compaction that we have at the moment
Is that because all DD strip till crops look backwards till June or from a combine yield meter point of view
 

Sandy

Member
Location
Aberdeenshire
No not going down too much on with this frosty weather, I would like a demo of a no till strip till drill but we're to far north to get one, my other problem is the plough / combi drill I have has a combined value of £12k and works between 750- 800 acre. It works very well and I know it will grow and be a good crop is there many up you're way @Zebbedee
 
No not going down too much on with this frosty weather, I would like a demo of a no till strip till drill but we're to far north to get one, my other problem is the plough / combi drill I have has a combined value of £12k and works between 750- 800 acre. It works very well and I know it will grow and be a good crop is there many up you're way @Zebbedee
No nothing much up here either just the usual osr subsoiler set ups etc but can see the strip till method working well but maybe in a rotational ploughing set up, we do ourselves no favours IMO with too much traffic in some fields working in the wet etc drainage and compaction is our enemy. I notice @Clive saying if you put a tine in deep you are doing no good but in our soils and wet weather I think we need to be able to do that occasionally. Much as I hate ploughing commercially they are a dependable option and not as dear as some think compared to multiple passes with other implements but I keep looking and Claydon would be up here in a moment to demonstrate if asked
 

Sandy

Member
Location
Aberdeenshire
Maybe just need to get on with it and try were all spring cropping with a lot of muck to spread were nvz and I'm sure it's got to be incorporated within a certain time period.
 

Brisel

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Midlands
I'd be interested in this. Reading the OP, I'd be wary of going straight from a plough based system to no till. Lots have tried it & found troubles with shallow pans after a couple of years. My main worry is a yield drop with few £ savings if you keep the old kit. The soil heals itself after a while but holding your nerve for years 2-4 while your costs of production go up with lower yields and extra depreciation. The temptation is to suffer for a couple of years then reset with a plough - then you're no further ahead & are disillusioned with not till so you never go back!

I was Min till with rotational ploughing for years before going to strip till. After 3-4 years of that I intend to go no till. If I had the resources, I wouldn't have bought the Claydon strip till but got a no till drill and a low disturbance subsoiler. The drill will work in anything but at least you can be selective as to whether you need to break any pans up. I needed a one pass system so opted for something that covered all bases on one machine. At least I cab reduce the tine depth or take it out & fit a disc kit.

The first piece of steel you need to reach for automatically is a spade, not a cultivator. (y)
 

Clive

Staff Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lichfield
I read an interesting idea / method to convert by a farmer in teh USA recently

he decided that he could afford to forgo 10% of his gross output a year and still be profitable

so he took 10% out of production and cover cropped it, he sprays it weekly with sugar to feed biology

next season he zerotills / low input that area -using a contractor so he doesn't invest in any new zerotill machinery

he then takes the next 10% out and repeats

when he reaches a point (yr 5) where he has more area under zero-till that tillage he sell his tillage gear and buy zerotill gear - he now uses a contractor to establish his ever decreasing tillage area

year 10 and he is 100% zerotill and no longer needs the contractors at all


Not suggesting this is the right way to do it but it was certainly an approach I had not come across before
 
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Fish

Member
Location
North yorkshire
The very first field we no tilled (Spring beans), was ploughed for the previous crop, wheat.
The beans were established by a neighbour using a simtec, it worked so well, we bought a no-till drill that Autumn and never went back to cultivation.
 

jonnyjon

Member
The very first field we no tilled (Spring beans), was ploughed for the previous crop, wheat.
The beans were established by a neighbour using a simtec, it worked so well, we bought a no-till drill that Autumn and never went back to cultivation.
Using a soil conditioning crop like Beans or rape is a good way to get started at no till
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
Depends so much on soil and rotation diversity as to what you can realistically do to transition from one way of thinking to the other.
Phasing it in in blocks can work quite well especially in less diverse rotations, or without livestock playing a part.
 

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