As I see it part of the attraction of the boot type drill is that the seed is placed in the bottom of a chamber that is still in contact with unbroken soil and so any moisture in the ground will still reach the seed (osmosis?) and because of the high relative humidity in the chamber (warm soil temp, moisture, lack of direct sunlight) you get a fast strike even in a dry time. In fact, I would argue that when competing against PP you might be better drilling when the conditions are challenging rather than just when youve had a good soak and the PP will be rejeuvenated and therefore be able to outcompete your seedlings.
How are you going to manage the sward now? Grazing or mowing? I wouldnt rate the chances of success as high if you are intending to mow it - PP needs keeping down and grazed rotationally/fast and hard to stop the stock (Sheep) selectively grazing and allowing the PP to swamp out the new grass. Not preaching but just seen it happen so many times - funny how often we get reports of brilliant germination and full lines of seed to then hear 12 months later about how the old grasses have taken over - so the drill gets blamed - nothing to do with how that rejeuvenated sward was managed. Hence we are very careful about which places we drill at now because you can tell fairly quickly whether the drilling will be a success before youve even visited the farm
Now he tells me!!
Very interesting point you make on the likelihood of success possibly improving in a more challenging seedbed! I think a fortnight ago would have been a tough ask as a seedbed round here
There is so little grass there, that I am hoping that some of the new seeds will make it through for 12 months. In all honesty, the whole field needs a complete revamp, burn off and start again, but cannot afford the loss of the grass this time now!
JUst having an experiment really... the intention had been a cut asap. The existing grass was so patchy, I needed to do something this time.