Direct/Strip-till drilling photo gallery

[E_B]

Maize into oat stubble, 19 days after drilling. Not sure how confident to feel about it but it is on some difficult land to drill, not because of soil type but because it's so bloody steep. Made the fan work hard. We shall see! Drilled with the mzuri.

An update on this. Fairly pleased overall with the strip tilled maize drilled with the Mzuri, not the easiest fields to drill and the poor bits/drilling cock up are all visible from the roads but only total a couple of acres out of 20 odd. Our ploughed heavier land isn't exactly romping away anyway and has needed some maize boost despite having plenty of seedbed phosphate. The cost saving over our usual establishment (plough, power harrow, drill) is massive and I will do the same again next time.

 

[Louis Mc]

An update on this. Fairly pleased overall with the strip tilled maize drilled with the Mzuri, not the easiest fields to drill and the poor bits/drilling cock up are all visible from the roads but only total a couple of acres out of 20 odd. Our ploughed heavier land isn't exactly romping away anyway and has needed some maize boost despite having plenty of seedbed phosphate. The cost saving over our usual establishment (plough, power harrow, drill) is massive and I will do the same again next time.

Looks excellent

 

[Daniel]

Back on the drill with a cover of oats and vetch.

 

[Warp Land Farmer]

Back on the drill with a cover of oats and vetch.

What kg rates are you drilling at?

 

[Tompkins]

Clayton drilled Butterfly at 4.2kg/ha, 29th August. Stubble had been terra star'ed and rolled then sprayed off.

 

[Farmer Roy]

Planting dryland cotton
Gunnedah
NSW

 

[TelesnaAg]

Looks like there is some moisture there?

Ant...

 

[Farmer Roy]

Looks like there is some moisture there?

Ant...

Long fallow from wheat harvest last November. No decent rain for nearly 3 months. We had over a metre of stored subsoil moisture but the top 100mm was dry . . .

Nearly 70 mm rain since last weekend has joined the moisture up nicely & now have near perfect conditions

 

[Tompkins]

Same field 10 days later!

 

[Brisel]

Planting dryland cotton
Gunnedah
NSW

Looks a tidy job

How does dryland cotton work out economically these days? Can you get any water to it or is it just going to take its chances? Irrigated cotton uses a phenomenal amount of water (25 Ml/ha?)

Do those row cleaning leading spiked discs work well? Why carry spare press wheels? Can you post some pictures of the actual seeding part please?

 

[Farmer Roy]

Looks a tidy job

How does dryland cotton work out economically these days? Can you get any water to it or is it just going to take its chances? Irrigated cotton uses a phenomenal amount of water (25 Ml/ha?)

Do those row cleaning leading spiked discs work well? Why carry spare press wheels? Can you post some pictures of the actual seeding part please?

On our soil types / environment suit dryland cotton, high moisture holding soils & summer rainfall ( in theory )
Dryland cotton only starts to become attractive at around the $500 / b mark, but once over that it it generally the most profitable / consistant summer crop we can grow. Many people base their whole rotation aroun dryland cotton

25 meg ? Dunno where you got that? Figure can vary widely depending on soils, climate, rotations etc etc . Over the last 20 yrs or so there have been massive reductions in allocations, gains in water use efficiency & of course much higher pumping costs. When I read your question, I thought maybe 6 - 8 meg / ha.
I looked it up

No option for watering here, I have no licence, no water, no bores & no infrastructure. Dryland is all about conserving soil moisture & risk management

Row cleaners - sometimes they do a good job, sometimes they a pain in the arse & just bulldoze the straw in front of them. Can be a bit fiddly to get right at times, you want them moving the straw but not the soil. If you disturb the soil surface too much you expose the moisture to sun / heat / wind which dries it out which is obviously bad. Hence the popularity of disc openers here

Seed boxes / meters are John Deere Vacuum meters. Meter out individual seed per row. Seeds are held against individual cells in seed plate by vacuum, are then released into seed tube as plate rotates

 

[Farmer Roy]

Oh yeah, spare presswheels

If anything is going to do a bearing, it will be a presswheel as they spin faster & probably do more work than any other bearing

There is also a spare disc / hub / bearing assembly there as well.

Why ?
Well, it can be a long way back to the ute sometimes & I don't like driving tractors across fields unless they are actually working . . .
5 min job to swap over, or half hour or more wasted going back to get a spare ?

 

[Dead Rabbits]

On our soil types / environment suit dryland cotton, high moisture holding soils & summer rainfall ( in theory )
Dryland cotton only starts to become attractive at around the $500 / b mark, but once over that it it generally the most profitable / consistant summer crop we can grow. Many people base their whole rotation aroun dryland cotton

25 meg ? Dunno where you got that? Figure can vary widely depending on soils, climate, rotations etc etc . Over the last 20 yrs or so there have been massive reductions in allocations, gains in water use efficiency & of course much higher pumping costs. When I read your question, I thought maybe 6 - 8 meg / ha.
I looked it up

No option for watering here, I have no licence, no water, no bores & no infrastructure. Dryland is all about conserving soil moisture & risk management

Row cleaners - sometimes they do a good job, sometimes they a pain in the arse & just bulldoze the straw in front of them. Can be a bit fiddly to get right at times, you want them moving the straw but not the soil. If you disturb the soil surface too much you expose the moisture to sun / heat / wind which dries it out which is obviously bad. Hence the popularity of disc openers here

Seed boxes / meters are John Deere Vacuum meters. Meter out individual seed per row. Seeds are held against individual cells in seed plate by vacuum, are then released into seed tube as plate rotates

One of the best row crop planter platforms ever built. Almost endless aftermarket parts and very adaptable.

 

[TelesnaAg]

25 meg...lol...if you grow it in the sahara or simpson desert...

Ant...

 

[Brisel]

On our soil types / environment suit dryland cotton, high moisture holding soils & summer rainfall ( in theory )
Dryland cotton only starts to become attractive at around the $500 / b mark, but once over that it it generally the most profitable / consistant summer crop we can grow. Many people base their whole rotation aroun dryland cotton

25 meg ? Dunno where you got that? Figure can vary widely depending on soils, climate, rotations etc etc . Over the last 20 yrs or so there have been massive reductions in allocations, gains in water use efficiency & of course much higher pumping costs. When I read your question, I thought maybe 6 - 8 meg / ha.
I looked it up

No option for watering here, I have no licence, no water, no bores & no infrastructure. Dryland is all about conserving soil moisture & risk management

Row cleaners - sometimes they do a good job, sometimes they a pain in the arse & just bulldoze the straw in front of them. Can be a bit fiddly to get right at times, you want them moving the straw but not the soil. If you disturb the soil surface too much you expose the moisture to sun / heat / wind which dries it out which is obviously bad. Hence the popularity of disc openers here

Seed boxes / meters are John Deere Vacuum meters. Meter out individual seed per row. Seeds are held against individual cells in seed plate by vacuum, are then released into seed tube as plate rotates

Thank you for the full explanation. My hazy memory of 25 Ml/ha was obviously way out! What does 5.2 Ml/ha include? Rainfall? Evapotranspiration? The entire average water requirement of a row crop cotton crop? I had a look at the Cotton Australia website & couldn't find out much more on it. I ask, because Donald McMurrich, an old mate of mine was looking into growing durum wheat as a break crop on irrigated land for CGS and latterly Twynhams before he gave that up and moved to Toowoomba/Warwick. It needed far less water than cotton but being a winter crop may be a major part of that.

 

[Farmer Roy]

Irrigation is highly regulated & metered. Those figures above would be for purely the amount of water pumped

100 mm of rain = 1 meg/ha.
Say our average rainfall is 600 mm, that means we get the equivalent of 6 meg as rain.

These heavy black clay soils are like a sponge, they can hold a huge amount of PAW ( plant available water ) , the downside of that is, when they are completely dry they take a LOT to get wet again.

Previous crops, rotations, fallow length / Cropping intensity, rainfall, groundcover, zero till or conventional, are all variables that affect irrigation water requirements. Along with actual water allocation / licence, and the actual nett returns of $ / meg / ha

Wheat after cotton probably using some residual moisture & N from cotton, wheat his shorter growing season & main growth is in cooler months, so yes, water requirements would be lower. Also relevant is the actual $ returns of spending too much $ on irrigating wheat compared with cotton

 

[Farmer Roy]

Trash whippers ( row cleaners ) in action

https://instagram.com/p/BaaTy45gUmp/

 

[Farmer Roy]

And now they don't . . .

At times they can be a real pain in the arse when they start bulldozing straw rather than sweeping it aside

 

[Dead Rabbits]

And now they don't . . .

At times they can be a real pain in the arse when they start bulldozing straw rather than sweeping it aside

You have end transport on that? Surprised it doesn't fold

 

[Farmer Roy]

Yeah, end transport

Our transport width regulations on public roads are quite restrictive. Anything over 4.6 metres wide we need 2 escort vehicles on most roads.
Anything over 6 m also need a police escort
Although I can sneak around back roads with almost anything, I do also have to travel on main roads at times.

12 m linkage planter, end transport the cheapest simplest way to stay within transport restrictions
Even the stack fold planters from JD, Kinze, White etc all still have a folded width of over 6 m

Only other option is to go with a trailed narrow transport machine, but then I lose the compactness & maniuverability of a linkage machine . . .