What is "heavy" land?

Happy

Member
Location
Scotland
What’s best best option on failed winter wheat on heavy ground?
I suspect it is probably a summer cover crop but if you were to try and get spring crop in what would be best way of creating a seedbed. Reset with plough and batter it into some sort of seedbed or burst up the top somehow without bringing up too much wet stuff?

Good wheat ground and get decent spring barley if autumn ploughed but this is what it looks like today.

F1449283-E34C-47E4-A51A-A08C0E96B8A0.jpegA3902B5E-C539-40E8-BC4D-6A6235E06E97.jpeg27D2AEE3-2FAC-4572-8D74-55AD09471C60.jpeg2E725449-335C-4FF4-A12E-D85019BE6FCE.jpeg53C58265-1C88-487C-BECD-C7425709C001.jpeg
 

Cowcorn

Member
Mixed Farmer
What’s best best option on failed winter wheat on heavy ground?
I suspect it is probably a summer cover crop but if you were to try and get spring crop in what would be best way of creating a seedbed. Reset with plough and batter it into some sort of seedbed or burst up the top somehow without bringing up too much wet stuff?

Good wheat ground and get decent spring barley if autumn ploughed but this is what it looks like today.

View attachment 865380View attachment 865382View attachment 865385View attachment 865387View attachment 865389
Couple of runs with pigtails, leave to go dry for a couple of days then spread fert and combi drill . No point in ploughing up slop .
 

Flat 10

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Fen Edge
What’s best best option on failed winter wheat on heavy ground?
I suspect it is probably a summer cover crop but if you were to try and get spring crop in what would be best way of creating a seedbed. Reset with plough and batter it into some sort of seedbed or burst up the top somehow without bringing up too much wet stuff?

Good wheat ground and get decent spring barley if autumn ploughed but this is what it looks like today.

View attachment 865380View attachment 865382View attachment 865385View attachment 865387View attachment 865389
Looks nasty, you have my sympathy
 

Cowcorn

Member
Mixed Farmer
Looks nasty, you have my sympathy
Aye we have all been there when bad wet weather comes after drilling. Fortunes of farming in a wet climate. Hopefully the spring barley will work out and redeem the field for the year . I suppose the ardent dd bucks are tut tutting at the sight as if such a thing would never happen them .
 

z.man

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
central scotland
What’s best best option on failed winter wheat on heavy ground?
I suspect it is probably a summer cover crop but if you were to try and get spring crop in what would be best way of creating a seedbed. Reset with plough and batter it into some sort of seedbed or burst up the top somehow without bringing up too much wet stuff?

Good wheat ground and get decent spring barley if autumn ploughed but this is what it looks like today.

View attachment 865380View attachment 865382View attachment 865385View attachment 865387View attachment 865389
Shallow rip with a chisel plough leave for 24-48 hours to haze off then straight in with a drill hope for kind weather and it will do great if the weather goes either too wet or too dry ☹️
 

Farma Parma

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Northumberlandia
Quite often read descriptions of ground being described as "heavy" but somebodies idea of heavy ground might be the lightest that another farms.

I thought I'd post some pics of our heavy land that I been ploughing the last two days for comparison.

The last picture is where the back tyre of the tractor disappeared into a wet hole and it then filled itself in again when I backed out. You certainly wouldn't stand on it.
Sure to find plenty much the same here. V difficult stuff but catch it right & if the season is kind it yields not bad crops some years...
then other years its half the yield ! And i cant see anyother way of working this type of land other than ploughing it.
You can have all your fancy DD & Zero Till until the cows come home but it will yield even less.
 

jh.

Member
Location
fife
You can have all your fancy DD & Zero Till until the cows come home but it will yield even less.

Is yield or profit king though?

If the DD costs a quarter of the costs to establish while being better for the environment should that not be factored in too.

We're 100% arable now but some area should be in grass . Perhaps in years to come the folk that can make DD work will grow crops and this heavy stuff , many of us can't make a job of will end up back in grass?
 

Dave645

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
N Lincs
What’s best best option on failed winter wheat on heavy ground?
I suspect it is probably a summer cover crop but if you were to try and get spring crop in what would be best way of creating a seedbed. Reset with plough and batter it into some sort of seedbed or burst up the top somehow without bringing up too much wet stuff?

Good wheat ground and get decent spring barley if autumn ploughed but this is what it looks like today.

View attachment 865380View attachment 865382View attachment 865385View attachment 865387View attachment 865389
We have 100% red clay lot around us have used front mounted spring ties, followed by a combination drill, or one pass with a power Harrow and then the same combi drill then rolled. Best not to rip it up in big chucks or it soon drys like that, if it needs a pan removing sub it, then the above.
Very nice seed beds around here done like this.
 

Two Tone

Member
Mixed Farmer
We have 100% red clay lot around us have used front mounted spring ties, followed by a combination drill, or one pass with a power Harrow and then the same combi drill then rolled. Best not to rip it up in big chucks or it soon drys like that, if it needs a pan removing sub it, then the above.
Very nice seed beds around here done like this.
Where in the country are you?
 

Dave645

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
N Lincs
Is yield or profit king though?

If the DD costs a quarter of the costs to establish while being better for the environment should that not be factored in too.

We're 100% arable now but some area should be in grass . Perhaps in years to come the folk that can make DD work will grow crops and this heavy stuff , many of us can't make a job of will end up back in grass?
Profit is not king your correct, But the min till men on strong land next to my good ploughed, drilled WW had a 100% crop fail with min till on A field bang next to mine, With the same soil.
and that field had been under min till for 6 years. I lost some part headlands due to the super wet conditions on the over worked and paddled headlands, making a shallow pan of smeared clay, at power Harrow depth.
 

Dave645

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
N Lincs
Where in the country are you?
East of Doncaster. Near the river Trent.

they extracted red clay in a quarry to make bricks for years just near us.
What we call red is not the worst we have, the worst can turn a shiny plough into a smeared mess in 2 meters. And drop you down two gears. We call it Cat S..t thankfully it winter fallows lovely.
 

A Trebor

Member
Location
Isle of Axholme
East of Doncaster. Near the river Trent.

they extracted red clay in a quarry to make bricks for years just near us.
What we call red is not the worst we have, the worst can turn a shiny plough into a smeared mess in 2 meters. And drop you down two gears. We call it Cat S..t thankfully it winter fallows lovely.
We call it Bulls liver, you near the isle?
 

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Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


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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