no-till

Sentry farming director John Barrett and Essex grower Dan Wormell explain the benefits of Clearfield varieties of oilseed rape and how they manage them in the field. The UK oil seed rape cropping area has fluctuated from a high of 755,000ha before the neonocotinoid ban to a low of 564,000 ha in...

CONTENTS ISSUE 1 Introductions - Meet the Team Farming what needs to change Plowman’s Folly Secrets of their success in zero-till Aqua-till How to start drilling for £8k Asda soil masters bursary Start simple with cover crops Could you run a farm scale trial in 2018...

Vaderstad Vaderstad’s Carrier Working on Blackgrass Prone Farms Vaderstad know that farms and farmers have to be flexible, that there is no one solution to suit all farms and therefore farmers need to find the system that works for them on their farm. Pure Direct Drilling just won’t work in...

Prime West Cross-slot technology emerged in New Zealand around 30 years ago, and has evolved through intense university research in both New Zealand and the USA. It has been field proven in more than 17 countries. In concept, the technology allows farmers to place seeds and fertiliser very...

Horsch, a Return to Direct Seeding Originally written by Frédéric Thomas and published in TCS in August 2015 While this may be a surprise many, Michael Horsch is first and foremost a farmer, not a designer and manufacturer of agricultural machinery. The opening of East Germany after the fall...

Rapeseed With Pulses and the Management of Nitrogen Originally written by Gilles Sauzet and published in TCS in March 2016 When we include pulses or beans in the cropping system, either as a main crop or companion crop, nitrogen management is at the heart of the strategy. Knowledge of the...

Getting Positive Results From A Cover Crop ‘Addiction’ Originally Printed in No-Till Farmer - USA By Julia Debes Bill Buessing leaves no stone unturned as he seeds various cover-crop species to feed cattle, build up soils and fix nutrients for cash crops. A self-described “cover crops...

Progressive Farmer - Alex Shutes I’m Alex Shutes - @Shutesy on The Farming Forum, 28 years old, a graduate from Harper Adams University in 2012 and now a farm manager on a 200ha all arable farm in Essex. We grow Oilseed Rape, Wheat, W Barley, S Barley and S Beans on a 7 year rotation but...

Start Simple With Cover Crops Cover crops are becoming the new ‘in’ thing for arable farmers, and more are trying them out, often without really knowing what they are doing. Seed merchants are getting in on the act, and there’s an increasing amount of conflicting advice out there. Farmers want...

Asda Soil Masters Bursary Visit US Farms Asda arranged and funded a ‘Soil Masters’ tour of a number of US farms which have been in the forefront of no-till techniques. The main part of the bursary project was to explore the feasibility of combining arable and beef farming using a combination of...

How To Start Drilling For £8K Clive Bailye’s seed drill of choice is his 6m John Deere 750A , which has been used exclusively for 3-4 seasons. Last year, with an increased acreage, the founder and publisher of this Direct Driller magazine thought a second seed drill was necessary. Having just...

Aqua-Till Uses a Water Jet to Open The Groove Originally written by Frédéric Thomas – and published in TCS Magazine in August 2013 Cutting with water Ultra High Pressure (UHP) technology is rapidly developing in the industrial world. We appreciate its ability to quickly and cleanly cut...

Conservation Agriculture Guru Shows Secrets Of Their Success in No-Till First published in @Practical Farm Ideas Issue #95, Issue 24-3 Autumn 2015 No-till, zero-till and conservation agriculture have subtle differences in meaning. In all of them, seeds are sown directly into the stubble and...

Plowman' s Folly By Edward H. Faulkner With a Foreword by S. Graham Brade-Birks M.Sc. (Manc.), D.Sc. (Lond.), of the SouthEastern Agricultural College (University of London), Wye, Kent. First published 1945 Traditions of the Plough The answer to the question, Why do farmers plough...

Farming What Needs To Change Mike Donovan reviews the seminal Hugh Bunting Memorial Lecture given by Professor Amir Kassam titled The Future of Farming: What needs to Change? The audience learned that, in the opinion of the professor at any rate, it was quite a lot. His concern is that...

MIKE DONOVAN Welcome to Direct Driller, the UK’s first magazine devoted to no-till. Farmers worldwide are learning and taking up the techniques of direct drilling and no-till, and I am delighted to asked to edit this knowledge based publication focussed on techniques and practice. My...

Hi all, my colleague Dr. Manoj Menon and I are working together to understand social and physical factors influencing the success of no-till methods. We are looking for farmers in the North of England who may be interested in having their soils sampled and analysed by our students (4-5...