Blackgrass and no-till

[yellow belly]

This is where we are at but more so for ryegrass although black grass is here in patches. The plan is year 1 14 inches deep. Year 2 10-11 inches deep. Year 3 7-8 inches deep then try no till again. We are ploughing very slowly at 5km/hr and running as narrow furrow as possible to avoid any holes. Although we’ve discovered 14 inches deep with 12 inch wide furrows doesn’t work to well!

if you have deep enough top soil no problem but if by ploughing 14 inches you bring up 4 inches of subsoil to mix with your top soil you will ruin your soil reducing the om in in your top soil in one go

 

[Howdenshire Farmer]

So can I say the following , no one reading this , has seen a reduction in bg pressure from no-till drilling

I drilled part of a field of wheat for a customer last autumn with my 750A. It was after osr and had been cultivated with a Trio and left to green up with bg. It was sprayed with glyphosate a few days before drilling. He drilled the rest of the field with his power harrow combi.
There is noticeably less bg in the part that I drilled.
This isn't strictly no-till but it adds support to the argument that minimising soil disturbance can make a useful contribution to blackgrass control.

I also drilled some osr for a different customer with my Met Flow. There were patches where the bg was like a lawn. The Kerb achieved near 100% control of it. I am convinced that it's efficacy was enhanced by the fact that all the bg shed in the previous cereal crop had germinated on the soil surface and, consequently, had shallow roots so they took up the Kerb effectively. I have often noted previously that where Kerb has given poor control it is because the bg has germinated from depth so it's roots are below the zone where the chemical is.

 

[franklin]

The only bits of BG in my vaddy-coulters-into-stubble OSR are in the wheelings of the sprayer. However, the quality of the rape crop goes from barn-buster to EFA-fallow where the land type changes much more readily than where put in with teh subsoiler.

 

[warksfarmer]

I drilled part of a field of wheat for a customer last autumn with my 750A. It was after osr and had been cultivated with a Trio and left to green up with bg. It was sprayed with glyphosate a few days before drilling. He drilled the rest of the field with his power harrow combi.
There is noticeably less bg in the part that I drilled.
This isn't strictly no-till but it adds support to the argument that minimising soil disturbance can make a useful contribution to blackgrass control.

I also drilled some osr for a different customer with my Met Flow. There were patches where the bg was like a lawn. The Kerb achieved near 100% control of it. I am convinced that it's efficacy was enhanced by the fact that all the bg shed in the previous cereal crop had germinated on the soil surface and, consequently, had shallow roots so they took up the Kerb effectively. I have often noted previously that where Kerb has given poor control it is because the bg has germinated from depth so it's roots are below the zone where the chemical is.

So that advocates zero till osr to ensure any BG from the previous cereal is still on the surface?