13inch cereal rows

[Adeptandy]

Well I only have experience here, and that's rather limited. But if reducing your tillage has had no effect on your weed situation, then why not make the logical step and stop it all together?

It reminds me of something I heard on this farm not too long ago. I commented that we had had good control of black grass on a no-till field. The response was - "yes, but we also had good control in min-till".

Well, if you've got good control in both systems, why would you use the one which involves more passes, more time and more money!?

Can't argue with you on that, maybe I need to have 40 mins in the van and have a look, if your willing one day to help me take the next step

 

[dontknowanything]

Can't argue with you on that, maybe I need to have 40 mins in the van and have a look, if your willing one day to help me take the next step

No problem.

 

[Simon C]

As anyone knows, the later you drill in the autumn, the higher seed rate you need to compensate for less time for tillering. It's the same for row widths, drill early and there is plenty of time for loads of tillers to fill the space between wide rows, but mid October drilled and it can still look like you only have half a crop come harvest. Been there, done that.

 

[Adeptandy]

As anyone knows, the later you drill in the autumn, the higher seed rate you need to compensate for less time for tillering. It's the same for row widths, drill early and there is plenty of time for loads of tillers to fill the space between wide rows, but mid October drilled and it can still look like you only have half a crop come harvest. Been there, done that.

So then that brings another issue into the equation, BG and the need for drilling a tad later to get an early kill

 

[dontknowanything]

As anyone knows, the later you drill in the autumn, the higher seed rate you need to compensate for less time for tillering. It's the same for row widths, drill early and there is plenty of time for loads of tillers to fill the space between wide rows, but mid October drilled and it can still look like you only have half a crop come harvest. Been there, done that.

Higher seed rate, better tillering varieties, rolling in the spring?

 

[Dan Powell]

If only there were a deeper rooting perennial legume to use instead

Hmm. Not sure about lucerne. It's got the potential to create big problems at harvest time. At least white clover is down in the bottom out of the way. I'm going to let other braver farmers experiment with that one...

 

[doorknob]

All "studies" done on this topic are suspect unless the study was done right local to your own farm. IMO. Far too many variables even a mile down the road, much less a couple hundred feet elevation.

"Here", direct drilling with a tine on wider spacings, has little weed control issues as the herbicide timing is usually a bit later because the residue cover between the rows delays the weed germination. Then, when we do spray, it is much closer to row closure, and the herbicide has better control as it is not trying to penetrate a dense canopy. In fact my latest planting of winter wheat that was direct drilled, has not had any herbicide yet. We will get by with only one herbicide vs. the tilled soils, and the spring herbicides we are labelled to use are less damaging to the cereal.

But we have also found that cereal variety selection is very important when using wider spacings and direct drilling methods of planting. Some of the most recent variety releases have not been so good for direct drilling, but seem ok for wider spacing as they have a wider and more broad leaf and are taller stemmed. Whereas some of the previous varieties were great for direct drilling, but not so good for wider spacings as they were shorter stemmed and narrower leaves as well as shorter growing season varieties.

Your mileage may vary.

 

[Steel]

Everything I have seen says that with high yielding crops once you go over 9 inch rows you loose yield.
In low rainfall the wide spaces have an advantage and I know of people using up to 20 inch spacing.
I use 10 inch to allow for better stubble flow with not much reduction in possible yield in my higher yielding irrigation crops.