Claydon drill

[cornishking]

Just an update....
Spaldings 9" share drilled Hybrid winter barley Bazooka in October. I am not sure weather its any wider on not, certainly moved more soil though.

 

[juke]

This is our effort with 9 inch shares in sunningdale barley , think it is slightly more spread over the 7

 

[James W]

I guess dont have black-grass, on our ground blackgrass would take over that crop on those spacings

 

[juke]

I guess dont have black-grass, on our ground blackgrass would take over that crop on those spacings

Got rats tail fescue to contend with just as bad as blackgrass for swamping a crop out . Management and rotation are key

 

[icanshootwell]

Just an update....
Spaldings 9" share drilled Hybrid winter barley Bazooka in October. I am not sure weather its any wider on not, certainly moved more soil though. View attachment 605526

Just as a matter of interest, what was the drilling date and seed rate?, on the wider spacing's, did you drop the seed rate, or do you drill the same as before.

 

[cornishking]

I drilled it on the 14th of October at around 200 seeds per m2. I didn't adjust the rate for the wider rows, suppose it's slightly thinner down the row.

 

[ollie989898]

I'm not quite a soil saving acolyte whose primary concern is not moving too much dirt, in my book the Claydon puts crops in, they come up and look good, in 1 hit and with no real yield reduction. Given the huge reduction in costs and time, I wouldn't hesitate to use it anywhere, it has worked well in some of the hideous soils I have had a play with around here. I have found the very best results were behind maize where you have no slug pressure.

 

[James W]

you havnt got heavy land then or resistant black-grass

 

[cornishking]

Lol, we've just got the poor weather and land which you're struggling to get more than 3.5 tons per acre on! Nothings perfect......

 

[juke]

you havnt got heavy land then or resistant black-grass

go to claydons home farm and have a look at heavy land they have black grass too. like I said before rotation is key and expensive 3 wheats don't lend themselves well to the bank balance or grass weeds in any situation

 

[ollie989898]

Our are not blue clay soils like I know some you have but we do have more rainfall and what gets wet, stays wet.

Some blackgrass is resistant, not all, rotations are a bit more diverse here or can be, in fairness.

If you already have some reasonable plough and fully combi system type kit, then you lose nothing by paying a contractor or neighbour to come in and whack in whatever he can when the conditions are good.

It really is magical and I can understand why folk want big tractors to pull them because they want to get a shift on when the conditions are good.

The two difficult parts of the system when using a Claydon are:

-Knowing when to stop and park the drill up.

-Coping with crops that look peculiar when they have emerged.

 

[Brisel]

go to claydons home farm and have a look at heavy land they have black grass too. like I said before rotation is key and expensive 3 wheats don't lend themselves well to the bank balance or grass weeds in any situation

Jeff Claydon grows 2 winter wheats then winter osr on most of his ground, some of which is pretty ordinary. He has a pretty good population of blackgrass despite his long term strip tillage and multiple surface tickling with rakes & the Terrastar.

Strip till will not cure a weed problem. A good husbandry programme and rotation will do that.

 

[juke]

Jeff Claydon grows 2 winter wheats then winter osr on most of his ground, some of which is pretty ordinary. He has a pretty good population of blackgrass despite his long term strip tillage and multiple surface tickling with rakes & the Terrastar.

Strip till will not cure a weed problem. A good husbandry programme and rotation will do that.

that's why we only grow a first wheat , I was using the claydon home farm as a reference as most people on this thread know the farm is heavy and has blackgrass... don't agree with there rotation at all...

 

[ollie989898]

I do believe I have 'cured' a blackgrass problem in two particular fields I used to look after because of claydoning.

Initially they were rented out for a neighbouring dairy farmer to grow maize on for a couple of years- the maize was useful as a rotational tool and we were getting free P and K and ploughing chucked in, for free in effect.

After the last crop of maize, I reckon autumn 2015, we Claydoned the wheat in, haven't seen blackgrass there since and there was still none these Wednesday this week. The only noticeable weed is groundsel which is a carry over from letting some seed one year when I foolishly agreed to let the farmer leave it. Didn't hurt yield but regretted it ever since.

Farmer has also adopted scratch till (old school pig tine thing dragged out of the nettles) behind the combine as a thing. Also drags some old fashioned ring rollers along behind it.

Being from Dorset and no stranger to min-till and no-till kit and what it looks like, I would say initially I had more faith in the Claydon than the farmer himself. I agree though, that you must take a trowel, dig up your seed and look at it, don't leave it until emergence to apply slug pellets. Dig around and look. In dry conditions claydon crops can be slower to emerge. For Godsake don't believe Deter will stop slugs hollowing the seed!

 

[James W]

i have been to Claydons farm... i am not going to say anymore about Claydon drills, other than the system works well at Claydons farm and Claydon drills are popular with some farmers and less popular with others. Claydon is a good British company who make alot of their kit in Suffolk.

On another note, many farmers think they have heavy land. Even light land farmers think they have patchs of heavy land. In reality, most 'heavy farms' are reasonably friable, dark brown, clay soils. Many even grow root crops on their 'heavy' soil. We have some soil which is a greasey grey clay which is almost unworkable. A v share band seeder on this black-grass infested grey clay will fail within 5 meters of travel and, even if it could travel, the seed will be lieing around in ribbons of clay for the slugs to eat.

 

[rob1]

i have been to Claydons farm... i am not going to say anymore about Claydon drills, other than the system works well at Claydons farm and Claydon drills are popular with some farmers and less popular with others. Claydon is a good British company who make alot of their kit in Suffolk.

On another note, many farmers think they have heavy land. Even light land farmers think they have patchs of heavy land. In reality, most 'heavy farms' are reasonably friable, dark brown, clay soils. Many even grow root crops on their 'heavy' soil. We have some soil which is a greasey grey clay which is almost unworkable. A v share band seeder on this black-grass infested grey clay will fail within 5 meters of travel and, even if it could travel, the seed will be lieing around in ribbons of clay for the slugs to eat.

perhaps you should be growing grass and milking cows rather than growing corn if its that bad, thats not meant to be sarcastic but honest opinion

 

[Douglasmn]

Why are some people almost proud of how unworkable their soil is and how much black grass that they have!? Almost like you're not a real farmer without those things. If you have black grass and unworkable soil then maybe it's a sign that your current system just isn't working at all. We have some heavier soil that can be a total b#st$rd to plough and get a seedbed. Grows green grass just fine though without any problems.

 

[James W]

Why are some people almost proud of how unworkable their soil is and how much black grass that they have!? Almost like you're not a real farmer without those things. If you have black grass and unworkable soil then maybe it's a sign that your current system just isn't working at all. We have some heavier soil that can be a total b#st$rd to plough and get a seedbed. Grows green grass just fine though without any problems.

we just went out of cattle after 85 years. We won Grand Champion at the Royal Show with our Pedigree Limousins and many other allocades etc, we sold all 600 cattle in autumn 2014 and it was the best thing we ever did. As for milking.. the dairy men have had aterrible few years many have lost their entire livlihoods.

 

[rob1]

we just went out of cattle after 85 years. We won Grand Champion at the Royal Show with our Pedigree Limousins and many other allocades etc, we sold all 600 cattle in autumn 2014 and it was the best thing we ever did. As for milking.. the dairy men have had aterrible few years many have lost their entire livlihoods.

You will be benefitting from very good OM levels if you think that ploughing will keep them at a decent level you will very disappointed, when they start to go down you will find that your clay becomes harder and harder to get a decent sed bed from

 

[James W]

You will be benefitting from very good OM levels if you think that ploughing will keep them at a decent level you will very disappointed, when they start to go down you will find that your clay becomes harder and harder to get a decent sed bed from

we gave up ploughing years ago, all the blackgrass seed falls down the soil cracks in the summer, plough is suicide