Direct/Strip-till drilling photo gallery

[Clive]

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It’s not the drill, it’s how you use it that counts. For OSR you need to either bale the straw, apply prilled lime or cultivate in front of the drill.

Photos are of 750a drilled rape at 2kg/ha.

I don't want to bale straw so the drill falls short of what I need for this crop - the drill should not dictate that, I have no viable market for straw in my area and I want the OM, dont want the baler contractor delays or additional traffic - there was next to no chance to bale any qty of straw around here this august so thank god I chopped it all and have timely established OSR crops today

I have drilled tried drilling lime with OSR and limed pre OSR and applied prilled lime post drilling. Light cultivation (carrier) ahead of the drill does help from experience but the increased weed burden (chalock) on this ground is notable plus its an additional cost and something we try to avoid with no till when ever possible

I have grown some good OSR crops with the 750a but not consistently and a tine does it consistently cheaply and at equally low cost and low disturbance in the case of OSR so why make life harder, or higher risk than it needs to be

its a fantastic drill and without doubt our prime drill doing the vast bulk of our work but I'm afraid its nothing special on OSR (average at best) and a cheap tine drill does a more consistent job for us on that crop without having to pander to it removing straw or spreading extra lime etc

I haven't totally given up on it as a OSR drill - following a single row test last year I have a set of Arick row cleaners on the way from Aus that I think might just help

 

[Simon Chiles]

I don't want to bale straw so the drill falls short of what I need for this crop - the drill should not dictate that, I have no viable market for straw in my area and I want the OM, dont want the baler contractor delays or additional traffic - there was next to no chance to bale any qty of straw around here this august so thank god I chopped it all and have timely established OSR crops today

I have drilled tried drilling lime with OSR and limed pre OSR and applied prilled lime post drilling. Light cultivation (carrier) ahead of the drill does help from experience but the increased weed burden (chalock) on this ground is notable plus its an additional cost and something we try to avoid with no till when ever possible

I have grown some good OSR crops with the 750a but not consistently and a tine does it consistently cheaply and at equally low cost and low disturbance in the case of OSR so why make life harder, or higher risk than it needs to be

its a fantastic drill and without doubt our prime drill doing the vast bulk of our work but I'm afraid its nothing special on OSR (average at best) and a cheap tine drill does a more consistent job for us on that crop without having to pander to it removing straw or spreading extra lime etc

I haven't totally given up on it as a OSR drill - following a single row test last year I have a set of Arick row cleaners on the way from Aus that I think might just help

If you’re not going to bale the straw then I’m sure the row cleaners will make all the difference.

 

[Clive]

If you’re not going to bale the straw then I’m sure the row cleaners will make all the difference.

from what I saw of the one I ran I think they could be the solution when you have chopped straw, my only reservation is how a full set will work

The CO has done a great job on OSR this autumn, I'm a little less keen on it for other crops however but for the money its a lot of extra capacity for very little capital

We didn't drill a single acre in September this autumn which is very unusual here and only just got the wheat, barley, rye and beans finished yesterday, its been a busy October !

 

[doorknob]

Let's see if I can get pictures to load here.
We are in a rotation land trade system with a berry grower and a nursery plant grower. We only get some of these fields for 1 or 2 years, then move on.
It was fun this autumn using the deere 1590 drill planting winter wheat into two clover residues that were harvested by different combines. Neither machine was setup for good residue management as the owners are not interested in no-till. However, here is the current result of planting into crimson clover residue that was harvested with a Case IH machine with no chopper.

You can see the residue is rowed heavily.
Here's what happened with hairpinning or residue tucking as some may call it.

And...

It rained that night as I finished the crimson, and about 3 days later I started drilling the red clover field. It was harvested with a Deere machine with a chopper. Even the heavier, and tougher with rain residue, had far better emergence and much less hairpinning.

 

[Dead Rabbits]

Let's see if I can get pictures to load here.
We are in a rotation land trade system with a berry grower and a nursery plant grower. We only get some of these fields for 1 or 2 years, then move on.
It was fun this autumn using the deere 1590 drill planting winter wheat into two clover residues that were harvested by different combines. Neither machine was setup for good residue management as the owners are not interested in no-till. However, here is the current result of planting into crimson clover residue that was harvested with a Case IH machine with no chopper.
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You can see the residue is rowed heavily.
Here's what happened with hairpinning or residue tucking as some may call it.
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And...
View attachment 600144

It rained that night as I finished the crimson, and about 3 days later I started drilling the red clover field. It was harvested with a Deere machine with a chopper. Even the heavier, and tougher with rain residue, had far better emergence and much less hairpinning.
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That's unfortunate about your residue management. It really does have a huge effect.

 

[mo!]

Google Translate doesn't seem to recognise which foreign language this is. Could you help?

Pocket typing. Sorry.

You lkilling pool 3zok
Lno

 

[Wilberforce]

First attempt at Direct drilling has produced some (hopefully) acceptable stands.

JB Diego into maize stubble

Oats into Wheat stubble. Both crops sown with a Kuhn SD drill working on peat soils and had glyphosate pre emergence. Pleased with the results but can think of plenty of things to do differently next year. Every days a school day!

 

[Dead Rabbits]

Some cover crop planted after oats.

 

[Farmer Roy]

Dryland cotton, planted at 11 seeds / metre, in a single skip row configuration, based on 1 m rows, on the 17th October

 

[Farmer Roy]

Grain sorghum planted a month ago at 6 seeds / m on 1 m row spacing
Apologies for lack of ground cover, previous crop was Mung Beans, which leave very little residue

 

[Richard III]

Autocast black oats after wheat.

 

[martian]

That soil looks lovely. Makes you wonder how researchers maintain that no-till doesn't lock carbon in the soil.
What is going in next and do you think frost will kill the flowering black oats?( We've found that ordinary oats at that stage get wiped out by a hard frost, very handy.)

 

[Richard III]

That soil looks lovely. Makes you wonder how researchers maintain that no-till doesn't lock carbon in the soil.
What is going in next and do you think frost will kill the flowering black oats?( We've found that ordinary oats at that stage get wiped out by a hard frost, very handy.)

Spring Beans next. I've never had large black oats survive the winter, so works well, there's not much left to kill in the spring. A dose of the evil glyphosate should give all the weed control needed to get a nice clean crop of beans.

I agree, I'm not entirely convinced researchers have worked out everything that goes on with the O.M. in the soil. We've built up a huge population of anecic worms now, so the soil turns over rapidly all on it's own.

 

[E_B]

Right, been out for a stroll on the heavy land for the first time in a couple of months. Mixed bag but overall acceptable. 11mm the night before (Wednesday). All crops Mzuri drilled.

This is one of our early drilling 'experiments'. Lilli wheat after a clean crop of beans, drilled 5th September at 210kg/ha. Turned wet after drilling, no avadex, no pre-em. Agronomist said spray it off. It got a hot post-em and some Autumn Atlantis. Not spotless but quite happy we kept it.

Bennington and Lilli wheat into ex grass a week or so into October hasn't fared that well although not a total disaster. Going to be a thin crop, especially if it is a wet Spring. Drilling after grass on clay is going to be the biggest challenge, I think using the new style coulter might help somewhat with less width and hopefully less peeling, better seed to soil contact, but if conditions allow, we won't be afraid to go over with the discs to give the coulters something more to work with. That said, the grass dries out the soil so much that you usually can't get a disc into the ground until the tide has turned and things are suddenly too wet. On the plus side, the field is clean of BG, and was fairly dirty two seasons ago. Would like to get some early N on but it's going to be a while before we can travel. I was quite impressed with how the drill kept the coulters in the ground once the hydraulic pressure was turned up a bit.

Tundra/Wizard/Bumble beans looking decent and clean, can't complain.

Star of the show this year on all types of soils are cereals after maize but don't have photos of those to hand. Regardless of the mixed results after grass, I was very pleased with how the drilled performed again last Autumn, next up will be some more strip tilled maize.

 

[RTK Farmer]

Got some barley in today with JD750a. LH side is drilled.

 

[Feldspar]

No till Siskin and scratch till Glacier. Generally pleased walking round the lower disturbance crops today. Small patches or poor stands near gateways, but small % of the overall area. Barley was looking yellow and uneven, but has perked up a lot now. Worst thing is the brome which is going to be a pain. On the whole, I think the no-till 1st wheat is probably the best we have as a block. Ploughed too patchy, and probably the Sumoed block is about as good but land doesn't look as happy.

 

[Feldspar]

Right, been out for a stroll on the heavy land for the first time in a couple of months. Mixed bag but overall acceptable. 11mm the night before (Wednesday). All crops Mzuri drilled.

This is one of our early drilling 'experiments'. Lilli wheat after a clean crop of beans, drilled 5th September at 210kg/ha. Turned wet after drilling, no avadex, no pre-em. Agronomist said spray it off. It got a hot post-em and some Autumn Atlantis. Not spotless but quite happy we kept it.

Bennington and Lilli wheat into ex grass a week or so into October hasn't fared that well although not a total disaster. Going to be a thin crop, especially if it is a wet Spring. Drilling after grass on clay is going to be the biggest challenge, I think using the new style coulter might help somewhat with less width and hopefully less peeling, better seed to soil contact, but if conditions allow, we won't be afraid to go over with the discs to give the coulters something more to work with. That said, the grass dries out the soil so much that you usually can't get a disc into the ground until the tide has turned and things are suddenly too wet. On the plus side, the field is clean of BG, and was fairly dirty two seasons ago. Would like to get some early N on but it's going to be a while before we can travel. I was quite impressed with how the drill kept the coulters in the ground once the hydraulic pressure was turned up a bit.

Tundra/Wizard/Bumble beans looking decent and clean, can't complain.

Star of the show this year on all types of soils are cereals after maize but don't have photos of those to hand. Regardless of the mixed results after grass, I was very pleased with how the drilled performed again last Autumn, next up will be some more strip tilled maize.

I'm very interested in your early drilling experiment. Crop doesn't look too forward considering. How bad was the black-grass before your hot post-em and is the field generally a bad black-grass field?

 

[Feldspar]

2nd scratch tilled wheat looking a bit thin and wetter, but miles better than last year's sorry effort that still did remarkably well. Also quite a lot better than the cloddy seedbeds we got for our ploughed 2nd wheat. Getting a decent winter crop in with heavy cultivation equipment would have been a mess given how wet the fields were. Terrastar really helped with establishment here IMO where very few other tools would have gone.

 

[Green oak]

2nd scratch tilled wheat looking a bit thin and wetter, but miles better than last year's sorry effort that still did remarkably well. Also quite a lot better than the cloddy seedbeds we got for our ploughed 2nd wheat. Getting a decent winter crop in with heavy cultivation equipment would have been a mess given how wet the fields were. Terrastar really helped with establishment here IMO where very few other tools would have gone.
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Looks well James. What seed rate do you use. For DDing

 

[Feldspar]

Looks well James. What seed rate do you use. For DDing

Certainly looks better than our spring oats which are being hollowed by the slugs. Can't remember the seed rate off the top of my head for that field, but it would have been about 220-230kg/ha drilled on 11 Oct.

We keep upping the rates every year and I've never had a field that I've thought I'd put the rate up too high yet except in OSR.