Success of direct drilling in long term.

warksfarmer · May 1, 2022

kiwi said:
Having used a Dale drill successfully for 20 years of notillage leaving all straw chopped on the surface with a mix of autumn and spring sown cash crops . I have come to the conclusion that a notillage idealist approach is maybe not the answer and we have to be flexible to aerating the soil with machinery when needed and/ or growing a restorative crop for at least two years in a rotation to maintain enough airspace in the soil.
The flavour at the moment is growing covercrops to maintain the root in the soil but in our experience the termination of covercrops for spring cash crops is or can be problematic from an allopathic point of view.
What are other longer term direct drill farmers thoughts on this.?

Totally agree. Unless you’ve really nice naturally friable soil you’ve got to be flexible. On stiffer land you need a low disturbance subsoiler and some kind of shallow cultivator because there’s times when you need to man make an inch of tilth so you get good seed/soil contact.

Farmer Roy · May 2, 2022

meh, 30 years or more of zero till, even when we were using conventional tillage it was only ever down to about 4"

crop choices, rotations, retaining groundcover & focusing on soil health / biology are all crucial

but, soil ONLY gets compacted by driving the fuch all over it, or by working it when it is wet. THAT is what you have to address & take control of.
Look at road construction, what do they do ? They rip the ground, they wet it, they roll it, then do it again & again until they have a solid hard base. That is what "conventional" tillage does to your fields

I KNOW that i farm some very forgiving, beautiful heavy black clay soils that have an amazing ability to repair themselves, but I have also spent a LOT of time as a planting contractor, planting a wide range of crops in a huge variety of soil types, as well as driving headers ( combines ) & cotton pickers for other contractors.

I have yet to see a single soil type that doesnt have its infiltration, structure, productivity, organic matter, soil health or biology improved by zero till & reducing / eliminating tillage. But it is a whole system, not just playing around on the periphery . . . The next things we need to look at are our fertiliser & chemical applications, which I also believe have long term negative impacts, but which at this stage are a lot more challenging to make radical changes . . .

Tillage IS a valuable tool, that I use occasionally, but only to address issues caused by a wet harvest or something similar. It is very targeted & needs a lot of justification. Not just from a soil point of view, but also due to the cost & time involved.
It was partly due to the energy crisis & rising fuel costs of the 1970's that drove a lot of people here to initially consider zero till. Well, Im assuming you are facing similar, but our real world ( after we claim back our off road useage rebate ) price of diesel has almost doubled since Dec 2021

ultimately, tillage is detrimental to soil health, creates compaction & is very expensive . . .

nature doesnt require tillage & look at the massive productivity & growth in natural ecosystems
nature also doesnt have tyres that drive the fuch all over everything . . .

Farmer Roy · May 2, 2022

if you need tillage to create a "tilth" for your seedbed, you have bigger issues . . .

jack6480 · May 2, 2022

Farmer Roy said:
if you need tillage to create a "tilth" for your seedbed, you have bigger issues . . .

Or you just have heavy land

snarling bee · Aug 30, 2022

jack6480 said:
Or you just have heavy land

^^ This. We have 'heavy' land and we have HEAVY land. One sort is a hell of a lot easier to manage than the other.

DrWazzock · Sep 19, 2022

Farmer Roy said:
meh, 30 years or more of zero till, even when we were using conventional tillage it was only ever down to about 4"

crop choices, rotations, retaining groundcover & focusing on soil health / biology are all crucial

but, soil ONLY gets compacted by driving the fuch all over it, or by working it when it is wet. THAT is what you have to address & take control of.
Look at road construction, what do they do ? They rip the ground, they wet it, they roll it, then do it again & again until they have a solid hard base. That is what "conventional" tillage does to your fields

I KNOW that i farm some very forgiving, beautiful heavy black clay soils that have an amazing ability to repair themselves, but I have also spent a LOT of time as a planting contractor, planting a wide range of crops in a huge variety of soil types, as well as driving headers ( combines ) & cotton pickers for other contractors.

I have yet to see a single soil type that doesnt have its infiltration, structure, productivity, organic matter, soil health or biology improved by zero till & reducing / eliminating tillage. But it is a whole system, not just playing around on the periphery . . . The next things we need to look at are our fertiliser & chemical applications, which I also believe have long term negative impacts, but which at this stage are a lot more challenging to make radical changes . . .

Tillage IS a valuable tool, that I use occasionally, but only to address issues caused by a wet harvest or something similar. It is very targeted & needs a lot of justification. Not just from a soil point of view, but also due to the cost & time involved.
It was partly due to the energy crisis & rising fuel costs of the 1970's that drove a lot of people here to initially consider zero till. Well, Im assuming you are facing similar, but our real world ( after we claim back our off road useage rebate ) price of diesel has almost doubled since Dec 2021

ultimately, tillage is detrimental to soil health, creates compaction & is very expensive . . .

nature doesnt require tillage & look at the massive productivity & growth in natural ecosystems
nature also doesnt have tyres that drive the fuch all over everything . . .

That’s what my dad used to say about conventional cultivation. After we’d ploughed it, we’d run a tillage train of harrows discs and rollers over it. Dad used to say we are just making a road. We’d end up with marbles on top of compacted aggregate. We’d actually spent all that time and money losing what tilth there was on the untouched stubbles.
As you say it’s a hell of a lot more than just buying a direct drill to get the system to work though. Attention to detail at every stage.

Kiwi Pete · Sep 19, 2022

Long-term no-till goes a LOT better with commitment to a long term "avoid compaction" policy.
You can get away with lots of things occasionally, but very few habitually

Lots of things can be done differently, but there are generally problems with every solution.

Two Tone · Jul 30, 2023

Anybody any experience of Direct drilling into Linseed that was harvested using a Stripper header?
If so, did it work?

ajd132 · Jul 30, 2023

Two Tone said:
Anybody any experience of Direct drilling into Linseed that was harvested using a Stripper header?
If so, did it work?

Yeh works fine

Two Tone · Jul 30, 2023

ajd132 said:
Yeh works fine

Thanks,
How is Blackgrass weed control affected?
Would you still use pre-ems as normal or is there too much Linseed material left to prevent it working?
Or does that help insofar that it prevents BG getting too much of a foothold?

ajd132 · Jul 31, 2023

Two Tone said:
Thanks,
How is Blackgrass weed control affected?
Would you still use pre-ems as normal or is there too much Linseed material left to prevent it working?
Or does that help insofar that it prevents BG getting too much of a foothold?

Just do it all the same, I think with linseed it’s fine.
We have stripped a lot of oats in the last but I think that compromises pre ems. The stripper header i inherited I am trying to sell.

Two Tone · Jul 31, 2023

ajd132 said:
Just do it all the same, I think with linseed it’s fine.
We have stripped a lot of oats in the last but I think that compromises pre ems. The stripper header i inherited I am trying to sell.

Thanks agains.

Dan312 · Jul 31, 2023

kiwi said:
Having used a Dale drill successfully for 20 years of notillage leaving all straw chopped on the surface with a mix of autumn and spring sown cash crops . I have come to the conclusion that a notillage idealist approach is maybe not the answer and we have to be flexible to aerating the soil with machinery when needed and/ or growing a restorative crop for at least two years in a rotation to maintain enough airspace in the soil.
The flavour at the moment is growing covercrops to maintain the root in the soil but in our experience the termination of covercrops for spring cash crops is or can be problematic from an allopathic point of view.
What are other longer term direct drill farmers thoughts on this.?

Dan312 · Jul 31, 2023

We are organic and have been using multi species cover crops , we try to plough at 6 / 7 inches deep and use a grass Harrow to weed cereals , I would love to go no till but toss up between fertilizer, chemical or ploughing I go for the plough . Was hoping to start with the a sim tec maybe for a bit more soil mineralisation but not sure ? Allopathic affect from rye or wild oats

some plants can handle it , some can’t .

Dan312 · Jul 31, 2023

Dan312 said:
We are organic and have been using multi species cover crops , we try to plough at 6 / 7 inches deep and use a grass Harrow to weed cereals , I would love to go no till but toss up between fertilizer, chemical or ploughing I go for the plough . Was hoping to start with the a sim tec maybe for a bit more soil mineralisation but not sure ? Allopathic affect from rye or wild oats some plants can handle it , some can’t .

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Success of direct drilling in long term.

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