Claydon TerraStar

[York]

We have had a go with the Terra Star. It was very useful in quickening up the drying of the surface to enable drilling and an improved finish, no peeling off the a shares. Left overnight and the wind was enough to take the edge off the ground.
In catchy times like this spring it would be very handy.

Yes,
a mechanically drying tool. One of the main aspects.
My 1st job driving a tractor, a DB with 45hp was to pull a 3-gang uni in circles on the field. My father was very fond of it, always lacked a little bit the service, especially the tightening of the axles, and so end of the season I was left with a 2 1/2 gang unit.
even on hard clay soils you would get a nice seed bed without plow or power harrow if you would just drive endless over the field. With a 12 1/2 year boy you had a right motivated person for this. to get some more hp out of the underpowered DB the exhaust was removed. Oh, how cool I felt driving circles with the loudest tractor of the village.
York-Th.

 

[Knockie]

So far so good, that's about 700ac of SB established with it this week......time will tell.

 

[phil]

http://www.tumeagri.fi/site/starmixer-hankmo-trailed-models/
I used one of these in 2004 as a replacement for a 7.4 metre Vaderstad cultus in a min till system
It did give good tilth but blades wore quickly and broke off
I think our soils were too hard,
Min till at time was very shallow 3-4" which made ground underneath very hard. Maybe now with cover crops a machine like this would dry and warm soil for Spring barley
The dilemma remains do you wait for soils to dry out and warm up before you DD and jeopardise yield or give it a helping hand which barley needs. I've seen too many pictures of DD stuck in mud and blocked up this spring because the calendar says you have to get on, spring barley is fickle enough without making life difficult for it

 

[Colin]

So far so good, that's about 700ac of SB established with it this week......time will tell.

Now THATS drilling

 

[Nearly]

Now THATS drilling

No, it's glorified broadcasting.
Half a day to dry off then roll?

 

[Colin]

No, it's glorified broadcasting.
Half a day to dry off then roll?

Now THATS crop establishment

 

[D14]

If you running about that much you might as well get your plough out

What happen to strip till being a single pass operation ?

say mid August harvest and 1st October drill date

Terra star
X2 rake
Drill
Roll - a must behind a strip till IMO

That's a 5 pass establishment system ! ? I can't help but think the point is being somewhat forgotten by their customers if that's what they are asking Claydon for !

Absolutely spot on and really why 'strip till' is just the new 'min till'. It will have its 15 years of popularity before we see a clear split emerge in uk farming in my view. There will be the zero till farmers who are just cropping and then there will be the mixed farmers with crops and animals and ploughs in their sheds.

Min till / strip till will fade away because people won't be able to afford to use the system due to the build up of weeds in particular black grass which is taking over slowly as chemistry becomes old and dated.

 

[Clive]

Absolutely spot on and really why 'strip till' is just the new 'min till'. It will have its 15 years of popularity before we see a clear split emerge in uk farming in my view. There will be the zero till farmers who are just cropping and then there will be the mixed farmers with crops and animals and ploughs in their sheds.

Min till / strip till will fade away because people won't be able to afford to use the system due to the build up of weeds in particular black grass which is taking over slowly as chemistry becomes old and dated.

strip till does offer something over mintill - done without rakes / tera stars etc it can save a pass and therefore a few £ and hrs I guess

agronomically it offers nothing though IMO

 

[Brisel]

Absolutely spot on and really why 'strip till' is just the new 'min till'. It will have its 15 years of popularity before we see a clear split emerge in uk farming in my view. There will be the zero till farmers who are just cropping and then there will be the mixed farmers with crops and animals and ploughs in their sheds.

Min till / strip till will fade away because people won't be able to afford to use the system due to the build up of weeds in particular black grass which is taking over slowly as chemistry becomes old and dated.

That's oversimplifying things IMO. The wane in decent chemistry to control weeds, pests & diseases will just cause growers to diversify their rotation which is what we should have been doing all along really.

Min till used less energy/ha than ploughing. Strip till uses less energy than min till. Energy costs money and tillage creates problems of its own. Even no-till relies on sprays to function properly.

 

[Feldspar]

So far so good, that's about 700ac of SB established with it this week......time will tell.

Very interesting. Do you think a fertiliser spreader is not accurate enough? (Actually given my fert tray testing this week I can sort of answer my own question.) What % of the seeds is it covering and how consistent is the burial depth? Ideally what would be the best speed to operate the Terrastar? Are you having to reduce the speed to suit the seeding unit on the front?

 

[Brisel]

So far so good, that's about 700ac of SB established with it this week......time will tell.

Why is the Cross Slot not an option here?

 

[SilliamWhale]

Absolutely spot on and really why 'strip till' is just the new 'min till'. It will have its 15 years of popularity before we see a clear split emerge in uk farming in my view. There will be the zero till farmers who are just cropping and then there will be the mixed farmers with crops and animals and ploughs in their sheds.

Min till / strip till will fade away because people won't be able to afford to use the system due to the build up of weeds in particular black grass which is taking over slowly as chemistry becomes old and dated.

Or no till mixed farming

 

[E_B]

Or no till mixed farming

By mixed farming, you mean arable farming with a few short term grass leys thrown in the rotation. Which isn't really mixed farming. But I do enjoy the idealism!

 

[SilliamWhale]

By mixed farming, you mean arable farming with a few short term grass leys thrown in the rotation. Which isn't really mixed farming. But I do enjoy the idealism!

Why isnt that mixed farming?

 

[Daniel]

Why isnt that mixed farming?

Because you aren't calving a cow in the middle of the night.

 

[E_B]

Why isnt that mixed farming?

Well I just remain sceptical that purely no till and mixed farming can co-exist in this climate, when including your grazing fields as part of an arable rotation. If you have permanent pastures in addition then some opportunistic 'mob grazing' in drier months may be possible on your temporary leys but then you are reducing your area available for cropping, and you also need to consider growing a supply of winter feed that is nutritionally balanced.

If you are only thinking about sheep then obviously compaction management is easier, and this is of course mixed farming, but for cattle or pigs it is surely beyond reality.

We 'no-till' ie broadcast a cover (stubble turnips) every year into a standing cereal crop which we then 'strip graze' with cattle for 5-6 months. We then have to plough it up prior to the following crop to alleviate the massive surface compaction that occurs, and this is on light sandy stuff. We have also bought a strip till drill which might stand a chance of establishing a good crop following, for instance, the silage gang harvesting forage maize, but that will be entirely dependent on the weather conditions. And according to the above posts, strip till drills are a fad and of no use, but I have no doubt that a no till drill would result in massive failure in that instance. Which is why I think mixed farming will always be that, a mixture of all different systems and opportunistic establishment methods.

 

[SilliamWhale]

Well I just remain sceptical that no till and mixed farming can co-exist in this climate, when including your grazing fields as part of an arable rotation. If you have permanent pastures in addition then some opportunistic 'mob grazing' in drier months may be possible on your temporary leys but then you are reducing your area available for cropping, and you also need to consider growing a supply of winter feed that is nutritionally balanced.

If you are only thinking about sheep then obviously compaction management is easier, and this is of course mixed farming, but for cattle or pigs it is surely beyond reality.

We 'no-till' ie broadcast a cover (stubble turnips) every year into a standing cereal crop which we then 'strip graze' with cattle for 5-6 months. We then have to plough it up prior to the following crop to alleviate the massive surface compaction that occurs, and this is on light sandy stuff. We have also bought a strip till drill which might stand a chance of establishing a good crop following, for instance, the silage gang harvesting forage maize, but that will be entirely dependent on the weather conditions. And according to the above posts, strip till drills are a fad and of no use, but I have no doubt that a no till drill would result in massive failure in that instance. Which is why I think mixed farming will always be that, a mixture of all different systems and opportunistic establishment methods.

Pigs I grant you, because the surface is going to need levelling. Ploughed forage maize where you have no control over contractors may also give issues.

Don't see a problem with grass grazing cattle but I suppose if you plan to outwinter and strip graze them then it will lead to some issues. I find even after hammering with sheep if you can get your crop in ok then usually the compaction dissapates after a few rains and some heat of the summer (and this is on two different soil types). I see at this time of year the soil "breathing" if that's not too poor a way of describing it.

 

[shakerator]

This could be very useful tool for getting more bang for buck on high ammonia manures IMHO

If you can smell it your loosing it !!

 

[Feldspar]

So far so good, that's about 700ac of SB established with it this week......time will tell.

How's it looking?

 

[Joe Boy]

I know the next bit of kit all the direct drill manufactures will be selling......

It's a grass land type subsoiler for arable direct drillers who are struggling.

So you can crack the soil a little to allow water and roots to get down with out the need for a Second pass, well maybe with your terrastar[emoji3] The sales pitch will be about not bringing up any clods or bg seed.

I can see that if your whole farm is nice free draining stuff any monkey could zero till it every year, even grow cover crops and not have too much trouble with slugs and cold wet slimy soil. You could even chop the straw and not get any problem with a wet soup of decomposing straw checking crop growth.

Trouble is not everybody's farms are the same. I think it's good that when some people find their soils do not perform as well in direct drilling as they had hoped, that they try to find ways around and are not just giving up and going back to a much SLOWER and more expensive system.

The difference between a good crop and no crop on heavy land dd is the few weeks after drilling, and the amount of rain you get. If you spend two weeks of dry wether waiting for it to dry and drill right in front of the rain it's probably not going to be a success. So why not use something cheep and quick to dry the soil in 24 hrs instead of two weeks and give the crop a good start in life.

I don't see why a farm needs a system that they use in every field every year and that if they deviate away from it they have somehow failed, or brought the wrong kit. Surely if your any good at farming you look at the situation and choose the right tool to create the conditions to grow a decent crop.

If you buy old kit a farm can have a complete range of tools, ploughs, min till and direct drill for the same money as one shiny new bit of kit.

Then use your expertise and knowledge of different tools/plants/animals etc to manage weeds, soil structure, soil moisture, biology etc to your advantage.

Then you don't have a crop establishment system but you do at least have something to think about. And if you think it makes your neighbours talk about you when you start dd, you should hear what they say when you don't dd. Then when your crops look good they can say yes but he didn't go straight in with the drill. Then you dd next time just to keep them guessing.