Written by cpm
Kent grower Tom Sewell uses the rotation, cover crops and direct drilling in his quest to quell blackgrass. CPM visits to gather the lessons he’s learned. Soil health drives everything on this farm. By Tom Allen-Stevens As you walk towards the patch of blackgrass in Tom Sewell’s field of Skyfall winter wheat, there are two things that strike you. The first is the crop itself – it may have a fair amount of blackgrass in it, currently shedding its seed, but it looks marvellous. “There’s probably 50-100m² here I should have sprayed off with glyphosate. But this is an 11-12t/ha crop – it’s not one that’s easy to give up on,” he says. The farm has moved progressively towards direct drilling, going completely no-till with the purchase of a Cross Slot drill. The second is the soil surface. You’re walking up the tramline that’s probably taken a dozen passes of the sprayer and spreader this season, yet there’s not even the impression of a tyre tread pushed into this medium to heavy soil over Ragstone rock. But that’s not to say the ground’s hard – you’d describe it more as reassuringly firm. Indeed, Tom has no difficulty plucking a…
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