Broadcast and harrow

[Grass And Grain]

They are drilling wheat in Cyprus now. Somebody must have told them to pull their fingers out, because I’ve never seen so much land being planted rather than left fallow.

The sort of drill they use is a cultivator with a seed box on top that drops the seed in front of the tines. No pipes to place the seed down the back of the tine.

Firstly, apologies to @Two Tone for quoting/stealing his post, but I thought the photo of this 'drill' demonstrated the principal that I was thinking about.

With the current wet conditions I have been giving some thought to drills.

A farmer near us had been direct drilling this autumn with a disc drill when the conditions weren't ideal. After heavy rain all the slots filled with water andcrotted the seed.

So, would there be any validity in dribbling the seed in rows onto the soil surface, then have a tine either side of the row of seed to cover it. That way the seed is not sat in a smeared tine or disc trench created in wet conditions, but is instead sat on top of our nice healthy structured soil.

The drill in the photo above would no doubt spread the seed randomly, and so 'hedge your bets' as to where the best conditions for the seed would be (depending on the soil conditions that year). Simple and cheap drill that could be cobbled together with a seed box, an old cultivator and a aybe a couple of depth wheels.

Personally I'm not a direct driller, but I'm interested in the system and have strayed onto the DD forums for this thread.

Interested to hear what people think

Discuss.

Edit. I'm going out to work now, and will catch back up with the thread this evening, so apologies if I don't reply to any comments during the day.

 

[Two Tone]

Firstly, apologies to @Two Tone for quoting/stealing his post, but I thought the photo of this 'drill' demonstrated the principal that I was thinking about.

With the current wet conditions I have been giving some thought to drills.

A farmer near us had been direct drilling this autumn with a disc drill when the conditions weren't ideal. After heavy rain all the slots filled with water andcrotted the seed.

So, would there be any validity in dribbling the seed in rows onto the soil surface, then have a tine either side of the row of seed to cover it. That way the seed is not sat in a smeared tine or disc trench created in wet conditions, but is instead sat on top of our nice healthy structured soil.

The drill in the photo above would no doubt spread the seed randomly, and so 'hedge your bets' as to where the best conditions for the seed would be (depending on the soil conditions that year). Simple and cheap drill that could be cobbled together with a seed box, an old cultivator and a aybe a couple of depth wheels.

Personally I'm not a direct driller, but I'm interested in the system and have strayed onto the DD forums for this thread.

Interested to hear what people think

Discuss.

Edit. I'm going out to work now, and will catch back up with the thread this evening, so apologies if I don't reply to any comments during the day.

One of the problems of using many drills this year is that the finish might look perfect right behind the drill, but turns into a bog after heavy rain.
My thoughts were exactly the same as yours @Grass And Grain when I saw this drill in Cyprus. Insofar as in effect broadcasting seed in front of the deeper tines, with a levelling board on the back might have worked well this year.

The secret being that the finish would be lose enough to provide adequate drainage to prevent the seed from drowning.