- Location
- Lincolnshire
I am just old enough to remember when we began drilling winter crops. It was late 1970's or early 1980's when we had a run of wet springs and couldn't get the spring crops in early enough. It rained so hard one April it took the bridge to the farm out. But from that time onwards we seemed to gradually build up a population of grass weeds and cranesbill that were hitherto unknown. We had also never known serious manganese defficiency and frost heave.
Spring cropping on the sand is easy. The clay is more difficult, but I reckon plough it early enough to get some weathering on it, but late enough so it doesn't have time to slump too much and it should be OK.
Trying to get winter crops in on the clay is problematic. Direct drilling is very risky. Gets too sticky very quickly which forces early drilling and all the agronomic problems that brings. Plough behind the combine and you get a reasonable tilth by October but again you have to drill by 4th October to avoid getting it too sticky. Ploughing so early generally also means burying unchitted weed seed and volunteers down in the profile which come up again sooner or later. It can also dry out and set like lumps of concrete.
I am also wary of becoming over reliant on roundup. I can see it going eventually and don't like overusing it anyway. Late, but not early autumn ploughing helps reduce roundup usage. Weeds are generally still small enough by drilling time to be destroyed by predrilling cultivation.
It's all about trying to develop a cheap and simple robust system that doesn't rely on too many chemicals.
Spring cropping on the sand is easy. The clay is more difficult, but I reckon plough it early enough to get some weathering on it, but late enough so it doesn't have time to slump too much and it should be OK.
Trying to get winter crops in on the clay is problematic. Direct drilling is very risky. Gets too sticky very quickly which forces early drilling and all the agronomic problems that brings. Plough behind the combine and you get a reasonable tilth by October but again you have to drill by 4th October to avoid getting it too sticky. Ploughing so early generally also means burying unchitted weed seed and volunteers down in the profile which come up again sooner or later. It can also dry out and set like lumps of concrete.
I am also wary of becoming over reliant on roundup. I can see it going eventually and don't like overusing it anyway. Late, but not early autumn ploughing helps reduce roundup usage. Weeds are generally still small enough by drilling time to be destroyed by predrilling cultivation.
It's all about trying to develop a cheap and simple robust system that doesn't rely on too many chemicals.