Claydon/Bourgault for destroying cover crop?

[Speckled Jim]

TIA for any help. As an organic farmer I’m playing catch-up with cover crops but think they would be a huge advantage if I can bring them into my system. But no glyphosate......
So I‘m looking into terminating cover crops mechanically, trying to avoid ploughing. See some people are rolling in the frost, using frost intolerant species, crimper rollers anything else?
I need to move soil to uproot established weeds, but I want to less soil less often.
I wondered if a bourgault a-share would be up to the job of finishing off a cover crop by up rooting it after the sheep have given it some welly.
Importantly much deeper does the bourgault share go compared to seed depth when drilling?

Thanks again for any comments. Jim

 

[Organic Mayhem]

I grow a mixture of cover crops mostly mustard mix. By spring the mustard has died off and depended on how much grass there is run the topper over it and then use a Lemkin Teradisc to create a seedbed. I have tried A shares in the past but depending on the type cultivator and what tines are fitted to it, you will be limited to how wide an A-share you can fit. Tried 32cm wide on a 1" pigtail but tine isn't up to the job. On the Lemkin, the share's slightly overlap meaning the whole surface is cultivated so no weeds survive! Which is critical for organic. Plus the tines are solid and don't move or ride over the ground.
Depth of cultivation will depend on what crop you want to grow next and how much tilth you need to cover the seed?

 

[Speckled Jim]

Hi, thanks for the reply.
The idea would be to have a Claydon type drill on the back with 220mm shares doing the drilling and front mount a cultivator with similar shares to work the strips in between. Or make up a drill from an existing cultivator, with enough room for trash flow, to do the same on the back. Agree about the legs, definitely need something fairly rigid and a good depth control. But isn’t that what a lot of the conventional growers use...?
Like the idea of being able to sow bands of cereals of about 125-150mm at 300-350mm centres, then hoe between. Then change the points and stick a bean in a bit deeper in a narrower row.
I’ve not used cover crops before but have heard good things of mustard and buckwheat. Apparently you need to wait 3 weeks from destruction of buckwheat to planting cereals to avoid the allopathic effects, is that the same for mustard?

 

[Organic Mayhem]

Last year made up a toolbar that went on the back of a 4m power Harrow and used Bouragalt quick-change seeding units. I used the 300-ATM-1000 spreader boot with a 7" share and did a fantastic job of producing a 150mm band. This was at 300mm between rows and used a 5" A share on the hoe to run up between the rows.
https://martinlishman.com/bourgault-quick-change-drilling-system/

In the process of converting my hoe into 6m drill/hoe. The aim is to then create something like Chameleon drill and be able to drill the crop and hoe and under sow with clover mix at a later date with the aim to eliminate having to do autumn cultivations to establish cover crops. Hopefully, more environmentally friendly and less carbon released plus the clover has longer to fix nitrogen over the autumn before the soil cools down.
The issue I had with trying to cultivate and drill at the same time is you do get more overlaps, especially on the headlands. Therefore making it harder to hoe.
I have tried hoeing using just a spring tine cultivator in the past but found that trying to make sure the tines are all working at the same depth so as not to go too deep and pull up the crop or just skim over the top and not takeout the weeds was a nightmare. As it’s impossible to get the perfect flat field!!! What I found worked best was having one hoeing rig per row to give the best ground following.
This year I’m going to grow Combicrop of barley pea mix now that the band sowing works well. I have heard that people grow bean mixtures too. How they establish the beans I don’t know whether they mix the seed or drill separately?
No Issues with mustard for following crop that I have found.
No experience of Buckwheat but saw a video John Pawsey did where he was looking to double-crop with undersown buckwheat but never saw the follow up on how the harvest went, looked like the timing of cutting one crop without effecting the buckwheat underneath might be an issue.
Last year hoped to go to John’s open day but like everything, at the moment covid put an end to that!

 

[Speckled Jim]

That crop and hoeing looks very tidy!
Seems you and I are on the same page. I bought a 6m Weaving tine drill about 5 years ago with the plan to drill and hoe with the same machine, undersowing was to be the icing on the cake..... I run a JD tractor and invested in “sat-Nav” a number of years ago. Have since upgraded to RTK.
I chose the Weaving drill for many reasons but, for this conversation, mainly because of the spring system on the coulters and flexibility of coulter placement on the frame. I have used a Garford hoe in the past and whilst they are an awesome bit of kit I found that the operating window of when I could get the spring tines into the ground was not as open as I needed. Anyway on the Weaving drill you can tension the spring to your hearts content and the share will stay where it’s put.
After lots of faffing about I have ended up on 360mm centres, and gone full circle through numerous leg and feet designs to where I’m happy with the balance of row width and soil throw.

Number 8 fits straight onto the standard leg and seed boot and I‘m able to undersow as I drill.
Currently putting a 220mm share up a 360mm centre row.
Whilst I drill with the guidance on around the headlands I normally hoe by eye, unless it’s very straight.
Yes the Chameleon is the proverbial “dogs”, does a fantastic job as does everything and more, and more accurately, than my little creation. If I hadn‘t already gone so far down the road with this design I’d be tempted, it would certainly have saved me a great deal of head scratching and scrabbling around under the drill!

Thinking along exactly the same lines re dropping a cover crop into a standing crop to gain the extra growing window and the wider rows not shade out the small seeds. Then the drag race to make sure we can combine the cereal before cover crop gets too over excited.
Then graze with sheep or top and plant straight into that. But need something a bit more substantial than the tine drill, the bourgualt point usually seem to be fitted onto a substantial leg and I really like the variety of points available.
What could possibly go wrong?