Back to minimum tillage ?

Two Tone

Member
Mixed Farmer
It is a strange year, BG wise.

Years ago, following 'the fashion(!)', I went from Ploughing to Min-till and wrecked the farm because of mixing the BG seed throughout the soil profile. BG became particularly bad in wet autumn and winter years.

I reverted back to proper/good ploughing and got it back under control.
I then became interested in DD. (well, if you can't beat the likes of @Clive , @Badshot, @SilliamWhale etc, you might as well join them!)

Various DD advisors strongly suggested that we should use a tine drill to start with, before moving onto a disc type drill.
I didn't like this idea, because I was convinced that it you don't disturb BG, it doesn't want to easily grow. So I became convinced that a Weaving GD was the best way forward from the start. I bought a nearly new one, skipping any tine type drill, which IMO would move far too much soil and encourage BG to grow.

The trick is not to jump the whole farm into it at once, starting on fields that are in the right condition to be able to DD successfully. Ploughing some one more time to ensure another good BG control year.
But from this year onwards, this whole farm will be DD'd.

OSR still scares me to death re CSFB, so I have switched to Winter Linseed. I pre-em it with Avadex, followed by Centurion Max in November and this is my cleanest crop with regards to BG crop this year!

With the Wheat especially (as with all my other crops), the trick seems to be to drill it just deep enough in good conditions, without disturbing any soil between the rows, so that the BG stays asleep. The BG that has grown this year, is in or very close to the seed row.

My third crop is (usually) Hybrid Winter Barley, which is deliberately in this slot, because 2nd wheats is where we usually get most BG. The Barley out-yields what a 2nd wheat would be and naturally suppresses BG.


The annoying thing this year is that the BG has germinated and grown since Christmas. Why?


My worst BG is actually on the part of the farm that I ploughed last Autumn, before selling my Combi (the plough is still for sale). Here the BG is between the rows and has exploded, Thank God it is coming Winter Linseed next year and I'll have a chance to rectify the problem.
My only explanation as to why its BG is so bad this year is that ploughing and combi drilling woke up all the BG that was there. More so than I had experienced in the past, ploughing it!
Maybe the wheat seed wasn't vigorous enough to give the BG enough compettion and maybe the seedbed should have been better. Also, very unusually for us, this is a 2nd wheat, which has again proved to me that I mustn't attempt 2nd wheats again!

All cereals got half rate Crystal, half rate DFF together with a full rate Avadex liquid pre-em. The ploughed land got it's 2nd half Crystal and DFF 10 days later. Most of the DD'd stuff didn't get that 2nd dose as it looked so clean and remained so until the new year. So subsequently, much of that Wheat had a Spring dose of an Atlantis type product. That stopped working years ago here and I was hoping it might work again after years of not using it. It still doesn't work!!

Nothing is available post-em for the W Barley, but its BG suppression effect is working quite well as usual.

My cleanest bit of wheat I have this year is following 5 years of GS4, which was the filthiest BG bit of land on this farm! The wheat was DD'd into the Roundup'd off GSF last September.
Its only herbicide so far has been half rate Crystal and half rate DFF pre-em!
It's as clean as a whistle!
 

robs1

Member
It looks like we need a tff competition of who has the worse spring germinating bg this year.
I'm claiming first place😪😪
That said I walked into a couple of fields this morning for the first time since end of march as I've been in hospital, the fungicides have done a great job and despite being told that insystor has broken down to YR couldnt see any in the few yards I looked at.
perhaps cutting back the fert has helped disease pressure
 

teslacoils

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
The annoying thing this year is that the BG has germinated and grown since Christmas. Why?
For me the spring flush is almost certainly due to one of two things:

The very dry early spring causing cracking before the wheat was tillering.
Later drilling not being rolled, and clods breaking down after frosts.

Almost every bit of single stemmed BG has grown from a broken clod. A fair bit has come from under a bit of wheat trash too.
 

DrWazzock

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
Blackgrass can become a problem on heavy land even with ploughing, because ploughing on heavy land isn’t always very good at burying it.
Blackgrass is rarely a problem on light land if you always plough.
Blackgrass can become a rapidly growing problem on light land if you don’t plough.
Generally speaking.
From what I’ve experienced during the last 25 years.
In my experience if you have a small blackgrass problem and you do nothing but non inversion tillage then you’ll soon have a big blackgrass problem unless you do the kind of rotational and agronomic acrobatics that tend to suck time and profit out of the job.
The plough is still a very useful and effective tool.
 

Cowcorn

Member
Mixed Farmer
It is a strange year, BG wise.

Years ago, following 'the fashion(!)', I went from Ploughing to Min-till and wrecked the farm because of mixing the BG seed throughout the soil profile. BG became particularly bad in wet autumn and winter years.

I reverted back to proper/good ploughing and got it back under control.
I then became interested in DD. (well, if you can't beat the likes of @Clive , @Badshot, @SilliamWhale etc, you might as well join them!)

Various DD advisors strongly suggested that we should use a tine drill to start with, before moving onto a disc type drill.
I didn't like this idea, because I was convinced that it you don't disturb BG, it doesn't want to easily grow. So I became convinced that a Weaving GD was the best way forward from the start. I bought a nearly new one, skipping any tine type drill, which IMO would move far too much soil and encourage BG to grow.

The trick is not to jump the whole farm into it at once, starting on fields that are in the right condition to be able to DD successfully. Ploughing some one more time to ensure another good BG control year.
But from this year onwards, this whole farm will be DD'd.

OSR still scares me to death re CSFB, so I have switched to Winter Linseed. I pre-em it with Avadex, followed by Centurion Max in November and this is my cleanest crop with regards to BG crop this year!

With the Wheat especially (as with all my other crops), the trick seems to be to drill it just deep enough in good conditions, without disturbing any soil between the rows, so that the BG stays asleep. The BG that has grown this year, is in or very close to the seed row.

My third crop is (usually) Hybrid Winter Barley, which is deliberately in this slot, because 2nd wheats is where we usually get most BG. The Barley out-yields what a 2nd wheat would be and naturally suppresses BG.


The annoying thing this year is that the BG has germinated and grown since Christmas. Why?


My worst BG is actually on the part of the farm that I ploughed last Autumn, before selling my Combi (the plough is still for sale). Here the BG is between the rows and has exploded, Thank God it is coming Winter Linseed next year and I'll have a chance to rectify the problem.
My only explanation as to why its BG is so bad this year is that ploughing and combi drilling woke up all the BG that was there. More so than I had experienced in the past, ploughing it!
Maybe the wheat seed wasn't vigorous enough to give the BG enough compettion and maybe the seedbed should have been better. Also, very unusually for us, this is a 2nd wheat, which has again proved to me that I mustn't attempt 2nd wheats again!

All cereals got half rate Crystal, half rate DFF together with a full rate Avadex liquid pre-em. The ploughed land got it's 2nd half Crystal and DFF 10 days later. Most of the DD'd stuff didn't get that 2nd dose as it looked so clean and remained so until the new year. So subsequently, much of that Wheat had a Spring dose of an Atlantis type product. That stopped working years ago here and I was hoping it might work again after years of not using it. It still doesn't work!!

Nothing is available post-em for the W Barley, but its BG suppression effect is working quite well as usual.

My cleanest bit of wheat I have this year is following 5 years of GS4, which was the filthiest BG bit of land on this farm! The wheat was DD'd into the Roundup'd off GSF last September.
Its only herbicide so far has been half rate Crystal and half rate DFF pre-em!
It's as clean as a whistle!
Good stuff hope your transition continues to succeed .
And of course that the minute the plough is sold the sneaky blackgrass doesent decide to return !!:):):):)
 
My cleanest bit of wheat I have this year is following 5 years of GS4, which was the filthiest BG bit of land on this farm! The wheat was DD'd into the Roundup'd off GSF last September.
Its only herbicide so far has been half rate Crystal and half rate DFF pre-em!
It's as clean as a whistle!

Got a field that was terrible BG so it went into grass for silage for 5 seasons. Put it back into winter wheat with a JD 750. Prior to drilling it had 4l roundup then a full pre-em plus follow up. Today it’s got both ryegrass and BG in it. Some pockets I’m going to have to glyphosate although the sensible thing is glyphosate the lot. So don’t assume your GS4 has got rid of it.

Spoke to a chap last week who ploughed a field last year that had not been ploughed for 12 years prior. It’s now covered in BG so the so called BG professional advisors that say the seed bank reduces by a percentage every year after ploughing is rubbish.
 

Lincsman

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
Got a field that was terrible BG so it went into grass for silage for 5 seasons. Put it back into winter wheat with a JD 750. Prior to drilling it had 4l roundup then a full pre-em plus follow up. Today it’s got both ryegrass and BG in it. Some pockets I’m going to have to glyphosate although the sensible thing is glyphosate the lot. So don’t assume your GS4 has got rid of it.

Spoke to a chap last week who ploughed a field last year that had not been ploughed for 12 years prior. It’s now covered in BG so the so called BG professional advisors that say the seed bank reduces by a percentage every year after ploughing is rubbish.
Clay soils that crack can get blackgrass seeds 12" deep every year without ploughing.
 

snarling bee

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Bedfordshire
Got a field that was terrible BG so it went into grass for silage for 5 seasons. Put it back into winter wheat with a JD 750. Prior to drilling it had 4l roundup then a full pre-em plus follow up. Today it’s got both ryegrass and BG in it. Some pockets I’m going to have to glyphosate although the sensible thing is glyphosate the lot. So don’t assume your GS4 has got rid of it.

Spoke to a chap last week who ploughed a field last year that had not been ploughed for 12 years prior. It’s now covered in BG so the so called BG professional advisors that say the seed bank reduces by a percentage every year after ploughing is rubbish.
Viable BG seed numbers reduce by 70% a year. If you have 100,000 seed m2, you still have plenty left after several years years. Do the maths.
BG seed will still move within the soil profile even if everything is kept very shallow after ploughing, especially if the soil cracks in dry weather.
 

DrWazzock

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
BG like open spaces it does not like competition so plant thick and leafy crops keep the seed rate up
if you have BG keep the BG seed on top of the ground
The problem is that “open spaces” often result from establishing in very poor conditions on heavy land regardless of the seed rate. You can see it all over here. Heavy land badly ploughed, poor establishment, open spaces, blackgrass thrives. It’s not really a problem that’s developed through lack of chemistry but poor basic husbandry in my view. We have worn out the actives trying to make up for bad practice. A bit like CSFB situation with OSR. Crap seedbeds, poor establishment, bad luck with a dry spell. Oh it’s all the beetles fault. Well err no it isn’t.
 
The problem is that “open spaces” often result from establishing in very poor conditions on heavy land regardless of the seed rate. You can see it all over here. Heavy land badly ploughed, poor establishment, open spaces, blackgrass thrives. It’s not really a problem that’s developed through lack of chemistry but poor basic husbandry in my view. We have worn out the actives trying to make up for bad practice. A bit like CSFB situation with OSR. Crap seedbeds, poor establishment, bad luck with a dry spell. Oh it’s all the beetles fault. Well err no it isn’t.

With the price of fuel recreational tillage to create the perfect seedbed isnt cost effective. My grandfather used to run a pigtail 3 times across stubbles before then running a spring tine in front of a mf30 closely followed by Cambridge rolls or sometimes a Harrow before the rolls.
Those days are long gone but we are battling ryegrass ……… 5 year stewardship fallow is where we are heading but not by choice.
 

DrWazzock

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
Timeliness.
Capacity.
Too many people trying to cover thousands of acres with too few staff.
Plough heavy land straight behind the combine. Left the weather break it down. Even the time between combining and autumn drilling will allow some wetting and drying.
Another tonne to the acre, or avoiding a complete write off will pay for an extra pass or two. Seed to soil contact. It’s essential.
Not going to tell you how to do heavy land farming but I just don’t think there’s an “easy” way or short cut. Sand’s different. It’s easy.
 

DrWazzock

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
There is no hard and fast rule though. We ploughed nothing for spring drilling. But we ploughed everything for autumn drilling. What we do depends on a multitude of factors and it’s changes all the time.
 

ajd132

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Suffolk
Apart from spring barley, which is proving hit and miss sometimes and needs a re think rather than pure no till, our crops look no different to heavily cultivated nearby farms.
in fact i have 45 ha that was ploughed after some poor beans (should never have been planted as over done on that farm but the land owner insisted he didn’t want any other break crops), in really good condiction, then pressed and levelled twice with a cultipress. The ploughed crops look more stressed and have been far more conductive to yellow rust. This has been seen in trials this year too interestingly. The other 30ha of wheat on that farm is after spring barley, it was zero tilled and looks a better crop. Will be interesting to see if there’s any difference in yield.
The ploughed stuff actually has more Blackgrass in it, and it was ploughed pretty well (for this soil!)
Quite pleased we did it really as its a re-assurance that we Are doing the right thing with the direct drilling.
 

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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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