DD barley

[SilliamWhale]

Did you get the spade out to dig up a few roots?

yeah. Rooting is not great but there is no compaction. Counter argument agronomist has said she has seen some barley which had too fluffy a seedbed and thats not been great either.

 

[Jim Bullock]

Will
Did you get poor /or have had poor establishment where there were a lot of grass weeds? In the past I have put this down the glyphosate effect but I am assured that it is all to do with the "auxins" in the decaying root mass in the soil...it appears it does not matter if you spray off the grasses pre or post drilling the overall effect is the same ..its just delayed if you spray off later on...talking to Simon C and Richard III at Cereals it appears I am not alone with this problem...The solution seems to be some form of cultivation...it doesn't need to be much just a pass with the drill (empty) at about 30-45 degrees pre-drilling has done the trick for us...(I see the market for a very shallow surface cultivator..)
Update...looking on a French website I see that SKY Agriculture (the new company marketing the Sulky Easydrill/Fertisem ..based on Moore Unidrill) have just launched a range of shallow cultivators to compliment their drills...! Great minds think alike..! http://www.grostracteurspassion.com/Actu/Et-maintenant-les-dechaumeurs-1744.html

 

[Clive]

Will
Did you get poor /or have had poor establishment where there were a lot of grass weeds? In the past I have put this down the glyphosate effect but I am assured that it is all to do with the "auxins" in the decaying root mass in the soil...it appears it does not matter if you spray off the grasses pre or post drilling the overall effect is the same ..its just delayed if you spray off later on...talking to Simon C and Richard III at Cereals it appears I am not alone with this problem...The solution seems to be some form of cultivation...it doesn't need to be much just a pass with the drill (empty) at about 30-45 degrees pre-drilling has done the trick for us...(I see the market for a very shallow surface cultivator..)
Update...looking on a French website I see that SKY Agriculture (the new company marketing the Sulky Easydrill/Fertisem ..based on Moore Unidrill) have just launched a range of shallow cultivators to compliment their drills...! Great minds think alike..! http://www.grostracteurspassion.com/Actu/Et-maintenant-les-dechaumeurs-1744.html

Got a link please Jim ? This is the roll I bought the carrier for really, sometimes I think a very shallow fast cultivation pass does a lot of good and doesn't destroy what we are aiming for with no till

 

[In the mud]

I have been wondering if a cultervation pass using a baker boot type drill pre drilling would be useful with spring barley. You could put Fert down at the same time or could the Fert be to far from the roots.

 

[dontknowanything]

Dr Beck is of the opinion that this sort of shallow cultivation is the worst of all, as it introduces compaction right at the seeding depth. But then he's not one for a lot of compromise.

 

[SilliamWhale]

I think beck is right but at the moment I can't see my round this one beyond having to use my old mark stig or grubber to get S barley and osr going.

That said where we did do the headlands with the grubber it was a lot better early on but seems to be only marginally better now

 

[SilliamWhale]

Jim B I cant exactly say there were a lot of gras seeds either in some spots.

Still inclined to believe roundup doing something to affect vigour somehow

 

[Andrew K]

Will,

Have you checked seed barley for any problems , vigour etc?

 

[Clive]

Dr Beck is of the opinion that this sort of shallow cultivation is the worst of all, as it introduces compaction right at the seeding depth. But then he's not one for a lot of compromise.

I think beck is right but at the moment I can't see my round this one beyond having to use my old mark stig or grubber to get S barley and osr going.

That said where we did do the headlands with the grubber it was a lot better early on but seems to be only marginally better now

He may well be right but can you afford failures until your soil comes right for consistent notil ? It's a catch 22 IMO because unless you grow stuff on the soil the soil won't get better

I think in many cases there is economically no choice whilst you transition to a situation where you never cultivate

I don't want to use my carrier but I will where ever I feel it needs to be used to get a good crop

Compaction only happens with any machine when used in the wrong conditions - as long as you never cultivate or plough even in wet soils I don't see there is much compaction risk ?

 

[SilliamWhale]

The weird thing is wheat doesn't care. Oats don't seem to care. Rape doesn't mind as long as it can get away. Barley seems different.

UNLESS it is could be true what Huber is saying and I have build up roundup toxicity in the soil (I'd be honestly surprised if I had many have been doing this longer than me - in fact come to think of it one field was spuds two years ago so that doesn't chime) and it affecting germination and vigour?

 

[Clive]

Will - I think roundup toxicity is a myth

I have been mintill for 18 years a used vast amounts of glyphosate in that time - most years twice at establishment and again pre harvest and never

Monsanto have plenty of haters and remember no one loves a good old conspiracy theory like the yanks !

 

[SilliamWhale]

Will - I think roundup toxicity is a myth

I have been mintill for 18 years a used vast a mounts of glyphosate in that time - most years twice at establishment and again pre harvest

Monsanto have plenty of haters and remember no one loves a good old conspiracy theory like the yanks !

I don't think it is a myth but I think in this particular case I'm probably wrong in blaming it for these set of circumstances.

 

[JNG]

Two years post spuds, your structure in that particular field will hardly be great to plant S Barley, You are right that SB is the least forgiving crop with tough /slow establishment. Do you have any in longer term no till fields to compare?

 

[SilliamWhale]

Two years post spuds, your structure in that particular field will hardly be great to plant S Barley, You are right that SB is the least forgiving crop with tough /slow establishment. Do you have any in longer term no till fields to compare?

yes got one in five years no till and it is crap too. Last picture here.
Yours looks good Johnny.

http://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/dark-luminous-green.5863/page-3

 

[htj]

Due to poorly established cover crops,or forage rape after spring cereals last year (slugs!), I had some patchy stubbles this spring. Where cover crops/rape had done well, soil was more bare, and gave a much better establishment of spring barley.
Where there was poor cc/rape, there was meadow grass by the spring, and when this was rounduped off in the spring, and dd'd with spring barley, germination was noticeably slower, I think down to the fact of toxins in decaying grass.
Just my views as a novice! You boys have been at it much longer!

 

[Dockers]

Will, get a Bullock rake from Weaving, it will cure the problems you have had with your spring barley. It worked for us. Non raked bad, raked, v. good. You can move mm's of soil.

 

[Badshot]

Went on a farm walk this week and the farmer has been notill for a few years now, he has struggled with all crop establishment this year and is putting it down to the soil being too tight from all the wet we have had, personally I am not sure but he has a weaving grassland subsoiler to lift it all up again, again I'm not sure either, it was leaving it similar to the way my shakaerator would, too rough to go straight into with a no till drill.

Now what is it that seems to make a disc drill fail where a tine succeeds? Is it the localised compaction from the disc? The tine mineralises a little bit of N? Whatever it is before DD will be accepted by the masses it needs to be found and a remedy made available, crop failures are unacceptable with the cost of the inputs and the loss in income.

 

[JNG]

Now what is it that seems to make a disc drill fail where a tine succeeds? Is it the localised compaction from the disc? The tine mineralises a little bit of N? Whatever it is before DD will be accepted by the masses it needs to be found and a remedy made available, crop failures are unacceptable with the cost of the inputs and the loss in income.[/quote]

Is this not the research done by the developers of the Cross Slot drill? Ill open that can of worms before I go on holiday, bye bye for a week?

 

[Clive]

I think tightness of soil after all the rain we had could be the issue maybe ??? Better structured and protected soils (trash or cover crops) would fair better or light cultivation fix as suggested

This is not an issue that many other successful notil countries have to deal with so maybe an issue unique to the UK's climate therefore no point looking for answers elsewhere we will have to evolve systems tht work in the UK

I think on soils that are relatively new to notil it's important not to be too single minded and get that shallow cultivation tool out if its needed in such situations ?? I see cover crops before spring cropping as another solution as they will protect the soil from weather and their roots will help loosen the soil I the seeding zone ?

As said above it would be nice to pin down these reasons for failure or poor crops when they happen to avoid walking into exactly the same trap next year

 

[willy]

I think tightness of soil after all the rain we had could be the issue maybe ??? Better structured and protected soils (trash or cover crops) would fair better or light cultivation fix as suggested

This is not an issue that many other successful notil countries have to deal with so maybe an issue unique to the UK's climate therefore no point looking for answers elsewhere we will have to evolve systems tht work in the UK

I think on soils that are relatively new to notil it's important not to be too single minded and get that shallow cultivation tool out if its needed in such situations ?? I see cover crops before spring cropping as another solution as they will protect the soil from weather and their roots will help loosen the soil I the seeding zone ?

As said above it would be nice to pin down these reasons for failure or poor crops when they happen to avoid walking into exactly the same trap next year

As regards to other no till countries, places like Australia often drill into flood irrigated fields so i think they do have similar problems?

But I do think a tine drill is beneficial and where you are will I would rather have a dale than a jd 750. Although cover crops can be an issue to drill into. So you need livestock to eat the cover crop and then drill and you get the best of both worlds. And extra income for over winter grazing