Andrew Ward's Drill Demo Day

ajd132

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Suffolk
I went,just down the road from me,so its the same soil type as mine.
I run a Claydon and I wouldn't have been drilling,a fortnight earlier it would have been a different picture,just a shame due to the very heavy rain in the previous week,but thats demos for you it can make or break a demo.
They were all leaving seed on the top it was like plasticine,or completely sealing it up in putty plus the demo field had a heavy shower of rain at dinner time which didn't help matters....
I think out of all the drills the Horsch did the most impressive job,shame about the rear wheels on the drill,they really plastered it down.
They all did a reasonable job considering the tuff conditions,not very pretty.
The ground needed moving as there was no soil mode,The Claydon plot needed straw raking after drilling then rolling,thats what I would have done,well all the plots needed it doing really.
Not really a direct drilling principle.
I am in the same opinion as Andrew with cover crops, on paper it should work but in practice, well others think they know best......

This type of ground needs patience....... lots of it.

The results are going to be very interesting.
Covers are fine on heavy land, if you pick the correct things to grow and manage it accordingly spraying off early enough.
If in continuous spring cropping having 7 months of the year where the soil isn’t growing anything is bad.
 

Mark Hatton

Staff Member
Media
Location
Yorkshire
Seems slightly unfair to the other drills? Least it hasn’t got Duetts on it-have Horsch admitted defeat now if they send a drill to a demo on Dutch?
I don’t think it will be in the same field, I believe they came to a decision on which drill to run in the day by trying to keep the number of tine and disc drills equal in the size of the field, but I may well be wrong.
 

teslacoils

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
Looks like they had a bad weather even just before. It's been the easiest spring drilling round here in ages. Most years I'd not even be looking until this week. I presume if it weren't a demo day then nothing would have been planted.
 
Location
sh!t creek
What drill is that? Seed isn't in the slot
The drill I was most excited to see drilling - but most disappointed once I had = Claydon Hybrid. You could pick out every tractor wheeling - as it was covered every where else in the main. I asked about it & the reply was that they would run the straw harrow over it once it had dried ?
 
Location
sh!t creek
I started no till as I wanted a low tech low cost technology ie to save money. The way some of the drills are going has me scratching my head.
Then look no further. This ticks the boxes Probably the cheapest drill there (except Andrew's FreeFlow) and certainly gave a good account of itself (y)
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20220406_150937.jpg
 

clbarclay

Member
Location
Worcestershire
would a tractor 1/2 the weight do on that drill?
Half the power certainly. Those simtechs are heavier than they look so while 100hp should pull it happily, it needs fwd and a weight to lift it. I had one on demo a while back and could pick it up with an unballated 6930, but then put the weight block on the front before I put the seed in to keep it comfortably balanced.
 

Karlis

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Latvia
Having done it for a few years now I disagree. If anything they are better agronomically.
no yield loss, apart from perhaps a late drilled spring wheat.
Field trials in our country were carried out 3 years in a row for spring barley drilled on 12.5 cm and 25 cm rows. Both with 300 plants/m2.

12.5 cm row spacing yielded (Y1;Y2;Y3): 5 t/ha; 7.9 t/ha; 6.8 t/ha
25 cm rows yielded: 4.5 t/ha; 7.2 t/ha; 6.6 t/ha

If there is plenty of moisture and nice temperature during tillering then the yield difference is not very signifcant. Probably the difference is even smaller for winter drilled crops
 

ajd132

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Suffolk
Field trials in our country were carried out 3 years in a row for spring barley drilled on 12.5 cm and 25 cm rows. Both with 300 plants/m2.

12.5 cm row spacing yielded (Y1;Y2;Y3): 5 t/ha; 7.9 t/ha; 6.8 t/ha
25 cm rows yielded: 4.5 t/ha; 7.2 t/ha; 6.6 t/ha

If there is plenty of moisture and nice temperature during tillering then the yield difference is not very signifcant. Probably the difference is even smaller for winter drilled crops
Yeh the only problem i can foresee a yield drop is if like you say a late drilled spring crop that doesn’t have time to tiller.
i follow a guy on twitter who farms in Kenya and gets 10t/ha of planet on 25cm!
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

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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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