Convince me to not plough

[ollie989898]

sumos jokers etc..all take big power a draft requirement, how but looking at the subject in a different way to 'the old 'bigger implement bigger tractor creepy creepy up.

instaed as astarting how say, for arguments sake..' a 99hp tractor and its gw is 4t max . (with ballast ) that's my limit ...;?
and work on from that sort of thing...

any compaction or 'pan' as they call it can be chewed away over time .. at by chicory or others , cocksfoot etc being one example of a grass thats got tougher pushier roots, and any case clover and grass doesnt need huge depth to work at , especially to start with. ...

You aren't pulling the sumo 14 inches deep though. You run it shallow, just enough to get some tilth for the grass, nothing more. A lot of dairy farmers have 150hp+ about these days just because they can. A sumo is only as greedy as the depth it's run at.

If your soil structure is good and the tramlines are not deep, a Vaddy carrier might be enough to get grass established in one go.

Chicory, cocksfoot etc etc I've heard all the arguments, don't doubt they can work but the majority of the serious dairy boys around here have little use for them in all honesty.

 

[Jimfandango]

Are there any options for doing this sort of job that don't require 100hp and over? My guess is that it is always going to be a job for the contractors and their heavy horses.

 

[Clive]

our soils are prone to panning, both below, and capping on top, we are trying not to plough, if possible, and we use aerator for capping. Ploughing, the physical action, of turning the soil over, kills off most of the worms, bugs and fungii, that help maintain, and improve soil structure. As a compromise, we are using 'deep tine cultivation, thus breaking any pan, with least physical disturbance, of the soil. So far, there seems little difference, crop wise, between the two, - plough, power harrow, 5/6 ins, or tine, power harrow, 3/4 ins, the second, is certainly cheaper ! The most important thing, is to get contact, between seed, and moisture, and we feel, the tine, retains more moisture than the plough, and a good rolling afterwards.

compaction/ panning and capping are both usually the result of over cultivation

it’s a hamsters wheel scenario - but at some point the only solution is to jump !

 

[Bury the Trash]

Are there any options for doing this sort of job that don't require 100hp and over? My guess is that it is always going to be a job for the contractors and their heavy horses.

what sort of job? as written above 90hp is enough for a 3m powerharrow,any other tool required also mentioned above would only need 60 nor 70 hp lightweight.
it would be enough for a aitchison forage drill or a duncan of 2.5 or even 3m..as long s as its not 'like the roof of a house'........ if one really wants too .

too many use the wrong tractor for a job,or need a bigger one to look better on the road.

 

[Bury the Trash]

You aren't pulling the sumo 14 inches deep though. You run it shallow, just enough to get some tilth for the grass, nothing more. A lot of dairy farmers have 150hp+ about these days just because they can. A sumo is only as greedy as the depth it's run at.

If your soil structure is good and the tramlines are not deep, a Vaddy carrier might be enough to get grass established in one go.

Chicory, cocksfoot etc etc I've heard all the arguments, don't doubt they can work but the majority of the serious dairy boys around here have little use for them in all honesty.

Ah now, yes intensive farming relying on high hp heavy weight and lots of N is not something i know anything about i have to admit.

 

[ollie989898]

There are plenty of tractors on livestock farms with 150hp or more around here. I don't know many dairy farms who don't have a fairly hefty tanker, or pull their own silage with at least one tractor. Others do their own mowing or ploughing and the number of people I know with front and back mowers or use contractors vastly exceeds those who I know mow with only one on the rear. Powerharrows, you can find farms with 4m, 5m or even 6m machines I had a couple of clients with their own 6m machine because it sped up the cereals and maize part of the job and was perfect for their system.

A second hand 3 metre min-till machine is not huge money and even though they are only 3m wide, compared to ploughing the workrate is much greater. How much would a second hand 3m mounted sumo or joker cost you? These are the more fashionable ones I know but there must be a gazillion 3m min till cultivators looking for a new home, you don't need to spend 10K on one.

 

[ollie989898]

Ah now, yes intensive farming relying on high hp heavy weight and lots of N is not something i know anything about i have to admit.

These guys are limited only in their land area. If nitrogen and cultivations did not work or pay for themselves they wouldn't be used. Clive may well say soils are being over cultivated but given that these guys are generally only changing crops a couple of times inside 5-8 years their environmental footprint compared to any arable system is fudge all.

 

[Bury the Trash]

These guys are limited only in their land area. If nitrogen and cultivations did not work or pay for themselves they wouldn't be used. Clive may well say soils are being over cultivated but given that these guys are generally only changing crops a couple of times inside 5-8 years their environmental footprint compared to any arable system is fudge all.

and to give the op credit they re putting grass / ley break in at least, to compliment theyre rotation, plenty of other dedicated totally arable chaps need the 'Mycorrhizal fungae ' lecture... (interesting and what we should all be interested though it is..)
....first i reckon

 

[Clive]

These guys are limited only in their land area. If nitrogen and cultivations did not work or pay for themselves they wouldn't be used. Clive may well say soils are being over cultivated but given that these guys are generally only changing crops a couple of times inside 5-8 years their environmental footprint compared to any arable system is fudge all.

you can over cultivate and destroy soil structure in a day if you try hard enough

can take years to recover

 

[som farmer]

Cambridge is the best thing if your broadcasting though, before you sow

now, for us, camsbridge roller, essential after drilling plough/worked ground, as, if steady rain afterwards, we would 'cap' the surface, which ends up, with a poor take !, funny how each farm is different.

 

[som farmer]

compaction/ panning and capping are both usually the result of over cultivation

it’s a hamsters wheel scenario - but at some point the only solution is to jump !

trying hard, but the capping, can occur with min-tillage, totally weather affected, anything other than light rain = problem, we drill when most farmers, would say, need another pass, with p/harrow, or similar. To us, not a problem, as we c roll, to avoid ! Deeper compaction, is probably caused by over c, over many years. The archeologists here, showed us the sucessive plough pans, from several 100 yrs ! soil movement, by cultivation, buried them in time.

 

[Derrick Hughes]

Easy way,to stop compacion ,don't compact !
Main culprit Mr Power Harrow . Pulverising the soil to death. Scrap hard for him
And thats easy for me to say, our soil will take a,lot before we have problems

 

[neilo]

Are there any options for doing this sort of job that don't require 100hp and over? My guess is that it is always going to be a job for the contractors and their heavy horses.

A pigtail or chisel plough would make a good job of sorting the compaction, without burying the top soil. Unfashionable implements in most quarters of course....

 

[Clive]

trying hard, but the capping, can occur with min-tillage, totally weather affected, anything other than light rain = problem, we drill when most farmers, would say, need another pass, with p/harrow, or similar. To us, not a problem, as we c roll, to avoid ! Deeper compaction, is probably caused by over c, over many years. The archeologists here, showed us the sucessive plough pans, from several 100 yrs ! soil movement, by cultivation, buried them in time.

my soil used to suffer very much the same

surface residue / undisturbed roots and increasing SOM is the solution

but like giving up drugs, cigarettes or alcohol etc it’s not a easy process and sometimes things can get worse before they get better

 

[Jimfandango]

A pigtail or chisel plough would make a good job of sorting the compaction, without burying the top soil. Unfashionable implements in most quarters of course....

I was considering a chisel as they are pretty common and cheap. My thoughts were it might be a bit coarse, but followed by a couple of passes with a spike harrow or similar might be a budget friendly option.

 

[neilo]

I was considering a chisel as they are pretty common and cheap. My thoughts were it might be a bit coarse, but followed by a couple of passes with a spike harrow or similar might be a budget friendly option.

After last winter, I had one poached field that was so bad that I couldn’t run my Kongskilde delta through it (I broke 6 shear bolts going twice up the field!). I ended up running an ancient pigtail through it twice, then worked it down with a short disc. Made a cracking seedbed, albeit dried out too much giving this Spring’s weather.

 

[Bury the Trash]

you can over cultivate and destroy soil structure in a day if you try hard enough

can take years to recover

or doing it too late in the season so that a cover cant be established quick enough like last autumn,quite amusing to see all the demand fr old hd springtines and chisel ploughs sold out of the nettles for people wanting to heave up failed arable fields, in the spring. an extreme example tho of course.
like you say keeping something growing ,rooting etc for the max.of the time is the key.

 

[Bury the Trash]

Easy way,to stop compacion ,don't compact !
Main culprit Mr Power Harrow . Pulverising the soil to death. Scrap hard for him
And thats easy for me to say, our soil will take a,lot before we have problems

Its gravity that causes compaction and a lot of the time its not an issue with patience anyway, only what people are lead to believe, chasing the removal of this mithical thing with steel and yet more weight on it will only be continuing the hamster wheel effect im afraid.
anyone can fudge soil structure like that and make it anaerobic at worst / make it poorly perform at best until plants and organic matter sort it out again naturally if allowed. ,
...or waste money /resources ..etc using any tool unsucessfully, unnecessarily or inappropriately.

Theres millions of acres of seeds sown (and lets face it seeds arent cheap ,) with power harrows across the world, in good conditions its a great other tool in the box especially if you've got one already...

 

[Kevtherev]

I have a large coopers C tine cultivator here if anyone wants one..

 

[ollie989898]

you can over cultivate and destroy soil structure in a day if you try hard enough

can take years to recover

It doesn't really matter long term though Clive; the bulk of the land in this region isn't being disturbed that often, the vast majority of it is under grass for years at a time. It gets sprayed off, ploughed, a crop is grown and then it is put back into grass. Muck and slurry being used on it in the interim. If you asked me what the long term solution that protects soil, raises organic matter levels and decreases carbon emissions from soils, it's putting stuff under grass.

No long term weed build up really, no resistance to herbicides because they just aren't being used that often.