DD drill for damp conditions

[l'ordinary bonville]

I use the term "damp" with caution as it might never dry up this autumn.
We are or were due to demo a Dale, Avatar, Sprinter and Sky but conditions aren't favourable.
Most of the land has had a "scratch" with a disc or shallow tine and that would probably happen going forward.
On our heavy but fertile clays up north it is usually trickier to get ideal conditions past the first week in October so I would have to be able to cope with this.
Catch crops don't usually have enough time to establish but cover crops before a spring crop should be ok.
Clay smears when wet
Disturbance at drilling is inevitable if a tine

Million dollar question, but disc or tine???

And not anything that needs Amino A with it!!!

 

[jonnieboy]

Patience and more patience
If it gets to December then triton all the way

 

[AF Salers]

Do you have any grass weed problems?
Do you bale or chop most/all your straw?

 

[Against_the_grain]

Dale hands down.
Its why we brought one.
No packer to get bunged up like on a sprinter
Tines which create a tilth instead of cutting a slot like a disc. Dale tine is narrow. Cant really see where we have been with it in stubbles.
We looked long and hard at this a few years ago. If its too wet you only have the 2 large wheels at the back (or middle on some models) to pick up. The gutlers are very good at running in the wet.
Used to have a Co4 but if too wet rear packer would bung up and stop turning....then you are f&%$!d

 

[nonemouse]

extreme wet weather disc direct drilling, patience is probably the answer.
But the drill in the video worked well for us last year, hopefully by the end of the week we should have our new ma/ag drill here. Your welcome to have a look if we get any weather that lets us get onto use it. (Not very far from you)

 

[l'ordinary bonville]

extreme wet weather disc direct drilling, patience is probably the answer.
But the drill in the video worked well for us last year, hopefully by the end of the week we should have our new ma/ag drill here. Your welcome to have a look if we get any weather that lets us get onto use it. (Not very far from you)

Would defo like to see at work please

 

[l'ordinary bonville]

Do you have any grass weed problems?
Do you bale or chop most/all your straw?

Blackgrass is a concern but current stacked chemistry is controlling very well.
However, it is because of blackgrass that I am trying to sow later, when conditions become marginal very quickly on clay.
Straw is part chopped, part baled and removed with sympathy for the ground. All stubbles get pig slurry using 16m ctf wheelings

 

[Michael S]

I accept the lack of individual tine depth control is a drawback too far for some but I still think the Simtech will work in wetter conditions than most no-till drills. I'm not convinced that moving the ground shallow is the right thing though. The trickiest drilling I have done this year is drill some second wheat where the straw was removed, cover crop drilled with Simtech, Cambridge rolled and then 34t/ha pig FYM. The cover crop only got 4 or 5 inches tall but it was the stickiest so far. I only have 24ha after OSR untouched and 24ha second wheat straw not removed but cover crop drilled and rolled. I went and looked this morning in the rain and remain quite optimistic that if we could string three dry days together, one to dry and two to drill, I could drill it. However the second wheat land is stickier than the ex-OSR land.

 

[yellow belly]

Sort bg with a rotation and plant autumn crops before the first week October
Notill once into it does not breed bg from last week September drilling like cultivated land
Once the bg levels are reducing in the rotation there is less seed returned and on the top it germinates when pre ems are active in the surface
Germination from depth in the cultivated late September drilling situation gets past the autumn sprays especially in a dry year
This year when it rained on 22 September is no good for the yield of any autumn planted crop
In 2012 all my spring crops except linseed margined better than all the autumn crop
Spring linseed without chinook is worse that winter rape for flea beetle

Disc or tine later planting is not that good in a wet year the lessons from previous very wet years
In years when we get a dry spell in October 7 days or more is still better to plant before first week of October
A strong thicker crop from early October emergence with 3 tillers plus pre ems does compete well with bg
Later planted crops can suffer from herbicide damage reducing thickness that lets the bg get past the pre em