Direct/Strip-till drilling photo gallery

[Brisel]

As I sent him the bill the other day, I thought I’d better look at the neighbours job I did 2 weeks ago, ( planting grazing / feed wheat ). It was on very light, sandy, hard country, moisture was pretty marginal & he thought he’d have to wait till next rain for it to come up.
Since the wet March, it has turned quite dry again & May & June so far have been very dry, with no rain.
Anyway, I was very pleased to see nice strong green rows - looked like every seed ( 40 kg / ha, so very light by TFF standards ) came up.

and not a set of rolls anywhere near it

why do you even need rolls ?

Rolls serve a purpose - your field in the photo doesn’t need them. Cloddy seedbeds with lots of air in them from lots of tillage need consolation, especially where you want to reduce the surface area to help a residual herbicide work better. Working soil creates more work to put it back down. Pushing stones back down too where you want the straw baled and run the cutterbar lower.

 

[d williams]

Rolls serve a purpose - your field in the photo doesn’t need them. Cloddy seedbeds with lots of air in them from lots of tillage need consolation, especially where you want to reduce the surface area to help a residual herbicide work better. Working soil creates more work to put it back down. Pushing stones back down too where you want the straw baled and run the cutterbar lower.

Very underrated piece of kit a rollers but need to used in the right conditions

 

[Farmer Roy]

Haha - I was having a dig at “cloddy seedbeds” & tillage & all the operations that go along with it

it’s also part of a private joke about how often rolls are mentioned on TFF & how they seem to be viewed as an answer to everything by some

 

[CornishTone]

Haha - I was having a dig at “cloddy seedbeds” & tillage & all the operations that go along with it

it’s also part of a private joke about how often rolls are mentioned on TFF & how they seem to be viewed as an answer to everything by some

Even Australians use rollers for squashing snails... don’t pretend they don’t![emoji6]

 

[Farmer Roy]

Even Australians use rollers for squashing snails... don’t pretend they don’t![emoji6]

only in South Australia / Victoria

no snails or slugs in the northern grain regions . . .

anyway, you KNOW I was talking more about crop establishment & germination, than pest control

 

[CornishTone]

only in South Australia / Victoria

no snails or slugs in the northern grain regions . . .

anyway, you KNOW I was talking more about crop establishment & germination, than peat control

Tee hee![emoji23]

 

[scavinge]

Thinking of getting a claydon drill or similar. Does anyone have any experience of using a claydon drill accross a slope. I have 40 degree slopes in some places, would the seed just end up in the trench that the tine makes?

 

[Brisel]

Thinking of getting a claydon drill or similar. Does anyone have any experience of using a claydon drill accross a slope. I have 40 degree slopes in some places, would the seed just end up in the trench that the tine makes?

The kind of slope you need to brace both feet and one elbow against the door for?

I have steep fields too. I bought a mounted model because I though it wouldn't crab sideways as much but really it made little difference. The seed ends up in the next trench! 2 rows become 1 but the yields aren't really affected much though the already p*ss poor seed depth control really gets worse as your paddles are way off line too. @fred.950 has even steeper ground than me & has run a trailed Claydon until recently.

The Mzuri has pivoting coulters which might track the leading legs better & the Sumo DTS has the coulters quite close behind the leading leg.

 

[Two Tone]

Elyann oats sown late March. Quite variable in height, ranging from 8" tall with poor tillering on the thinner areas to waist high.

Seeing your dog(s) in your photos always make me smile.
There was a famous farm auctioneer in East Anglia who always used to say:
”Stop that bloody dawg’s tail wagging, or I’ll take it as a bid!”
Then if you weren’t bidding very obviousl, he’d shout:
“ ARE YOU BIDDING? “
If you replied yes he’d say:
”Well bloody well bid then!”

There were farmers that would go just to watch him.

 

[fred.950]

Thinking of getting a claydon drill or similar. Does anyone have any experience of using a claydon drill accross a slope. I have 40 degree slopes in some places, would the seed just end up in the trench that the tine makes?

What soils do you have? I found on puffy chalk it was much worse than on slightly heavier ground!

 

[Brisel]

Elyann spring oats. Didn't do the final PGR because of the drought. These have suddenly grown in the last 2 weeks. Hope they stay standing!

 

[Villagefarmer]

Update on my spring oats just coming into full ear. Drilled mid March

 

[scavinge]

What soils do you have? I found on puffy chalk it was much worse than on slightly heavier ground!

We are on mixed soils, from one end of the field to other we can get 3-4 different soil conditions with lots of flints to add to the mixture. Farm is on the small side so looking to keep it simple to reduce time on farm work to spend more time on diversification when the giro stops.

 

[robs1]

Elyann spring oats. Didn't do the final PGR because of the drought. These have suddenly grown in the last 2 weeks. Hope they stay standing!

We had elyann last year huge amount of straw they buckled but mostly stood , our old mf32 cut them easily no lifters header on the floor almost and kept speed sensible, luckily it was nice and sunny might have been different in a wet time, took five days and three turnings to get the straw dry mind.

 

[Brisel]

We had elyann last year huge amount of straw they buckled but mostly stood , our old mf32 cut them easily no lifters header on the floor almost and kept speed sensible, luckily it was nice and sunny might have been different in a wet time, took five days and three turnings to get the straw dry mind.

What was your specific weight? Mine was high 40s, so no milling premium.

 

[robs1]

What was your specific weight? Mine was high 40s, so no milling premium.

Cant remember but it was crap went for feed, but I grow it for the straw as have strong demand for it. Got mascani this as I was intending to sow in the Autumn, they went in on the 27th March, used a much lower seed rate than last year as had used a heavier seed rate with late drilled WW so thought I would experiment to see if the bushel weight would be better

 

[Farmer Roy]

 

[Farmer Roy]

 

[YELROM]

There looks to be a nice bit of moisture or are the pictures deceiving ?

 

[Farmer Roy]

There looks to be a nice bit of moisture or are the pictures deceiving ?

yeah, we have about a metre of soil moisture now, which we’d consider as a “full” profile, so it’s much better than the last few years have been
Ideally, we don’t like to plant a crop unless we have 1m of stored soil moisture