Have any of the religious direct drillers been ploughing or tilling this time?

moretimeforgolf

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
North Kent, UK
All planned autumn crops dd here and looking decent bar one small field of beans. The neighbours who have struggled are the ones who have cultivated with topdown/ solo type machines. Ploughing followed with a combi drill on lighter land has been the emergency default and establishment has been reasonable.
 

Badshot

Member
Location
Kent
Finished planting winter wheat on 13th Feb.
Was looking very wet yesterday, mostly drained away today so fingers crossed.
Just beans to go.
Likely to be march now I guess.
 

martian

DD Moderator
BASE UK Member
Location
N Herts
Pretty much all drilled up here, except for w beans...trying to get them in a decent depth was just too sticky. We, like St Clive, did dig the subsoiler out of the nettles and 'lifted' a couple of headlands and a compacted corner of another field, before the rain came. That was a mistake, think if I tried to walk across it, I'd lose a welly. The rest of the land, undisturbed, immaculate, beautiful. Admittedly, two fields drilled with wheat in November won't make it, but others drilled at same time, on kinder ground, will.
 

Two Tone

Member
Mixed Farmer
I, of course, will be going straight to Hell!

Despite the fact that I got all my winter crops in early single handedly by ploughing and combi-drilling the lot.
So at least I’ll be feeding the nation!

Very interesting words from Dr Alistair Leake (GWCT) in last Friday’s FW.
Maybe my system scoring higher on the Nitrous Oxide side, a more potent greenhouse gas than CO2, will redeem me when I get to meet St. Peter!
 

Brisel

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Midlands
Dr Leake's FW article had one major flaw - he assumed that no till resulted in anaerobic soils that emit more NOx. His heavy Rutland clays (I've seen them myself - definitely NOT boy's land!) might do but that's not the same everywhere. At least he considered all angles of the debate & wasn't just on about how no till will save the planet.
 

Two Tone

Member
Mixed Farmer
Dr Leake's FW article had one major flaw - he assumed that no till resulted in anaerobic soils that emit more NOx. His heavy Rutland clays (I've seen them myself - definitely NOT boy's land!) might do but that's not the same everywhere. At least he considered all angles of the debate & wasn't just on about how no till will save the planet.
I certainly agree with Loddington not being Boy’s land.
Quite amazing what he has done there. Dr Leake is a really interesting guy, when you meet him!
He is asking the right questions and not necessarily coming up with the answers most people expect.
Hopefully, a good influencer of future Govt. farming plans.
 

JCfarmer

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
warks
No dders would have missed this thread especially placed in the dd general discussion.
Some are avoiding me thinks?
I did not purposely start with 'NO DDERS', only noticed when I read it back through.:D
 

B'o'B

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Rutland
No dders would have missed this thread especially placed in the dd general discussion.
Some are avoiding me thinks?
I did not purposely start with 'NO DDERS', only noticed when I read it back through.:D
Not all DDers come to the DD section all the time. I probably only frequent this section maybe once every 2-3 months. No plough or tillage here this year so I don’t feel in need of your forgiveness anyway :giggle::ROFLMAO:
 
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Dr Leake's FW article had one major flaw - he assumed that no till resulted in anaerobic soils that emit more NOx. His heavy Rutland clays (I've seen them myself - definitely NOT boy's land!) might do but that's not the same everywhere. At least he considered all angles of the debate & wasn't just on about how no till will save the planet.

Theres loads of flaws with the nitrous oxide debate.

Can we purport that if Loddington had successfully direct drilled a crop then they would magically have more nox emissions than if they left it stubble all winter?
 
Theres loads of flaws with the nitrous oxide debate. Lots of opinions based on second and third hand poor quality extrapolations of original research on nox.

Can we purport that if Loddington had successfully direct drilled a crop then they would magically have more nox emissions than if they left it stubble all winter?
 

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JCfarmer

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
warks
Your probably wanting us all to say yes weve fudgeed up and we need to go back to deep tillage like youve been doing all along.
How very dare you! I would never preach to religious dders about the need to use the plough.
Infact I try to use it as little as possible.
Unlike some dders preaching about how not to use it and we should all go to hell full stop.:rolleyes:(y)
 
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Bury the Trash

Member
Mixed Farmer
I think all dd farmers say people can do what they want.
well they should do unless they are hypocrites because its arable farming that does the damage to the soil full stop.unless you include building sites etc.....That's from Cotton growing to maize and all thats in between.

Well managed PP doesnt .
 

britt

Member
BASE UK Member
Well managed arable DD should be better than PP due to the more diverse plant species and growth habits over the ration.
However, there is often the need to travel when the ground is wetter than ideal which we have no control over.
In my experience if you DD when it is too wet to cultivate wheat does no good anyway. So DD is not a "get out of jail" when it's too wet to min till.
Plough and combi is your only real option if you are desperate to plant. But planting is not necessarily your best option in the long term.
 

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quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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