Does Direct Drilling actually save money

Cleaning up the diet, getting rid of a lot of stuff called "food" and healing the gut cleared up my health issues too thankfully. There are many things that mess up the gut but processed chemical laden food and antibiotics are the main causes.
Very interesting and scaring - excuse me asking, but as a foreigner I`m not sure I understand it right: "cleaning up the diet" means that you eat the same food now than before but try to keep it chemical-free and that healed your health issues ?? Or have you changed your behaviour / choice of the things you eat, so you`re eating totally different food now, less processed, eating slower, etc. ??
 

Audlem Agron

Member
Location
Cheshire
To any of you that don't have their basis, do you think there is a place for specialists DD agronomists? As I am one of very few dd ing in my area I find that agronomists are not very clued up on the system ,especially the nutritional side. Is this the same all over or do you bigger growers all have your basis?
Hiya ! Agronomist and a DD specialist.
 
You are entitled to your opinion as am i, the only difference is mine is based on my experience, what's yours based on? Chemical industry's lies? Or do you just no stuff? My original question was how do I farm no till without roundup, I didn't ask for a debate on the safety of chemicals

so show use the studies you have carried out that prove your experience

there are a few billion people who would not be alive with out glyphosate and modern agriculture as without the benefits of food produced in the usa china brazil the eu and india
returning to Victorian agriculture would comdemn half the worlds population to starvation wealthy countries could afford to buy all the food
 

jonnyjon

Member
Very interesting and scaring - excuse me asking, but as a foreigner I`m not sure I understand it right: "cleaning up the diet" means that you eat the same food now than before but try to keep it chemical-free and that healed your health issues ?? Or have you changed your behaviour / choice of the things you eat, so you`re eating totally different food now, less processed, eating slower, etc. ??
I'm done with this discussion, I never wanted an argument about chemicals. To answer your question, I've cleared out processed food and taken steps to heal the gut and health has improved no end. You are what you eat
 

Farmer Roy

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
NSW, Newstralya
Not wanting to use roundup has nothing to do with reductionist thinking, I don't want to use it because I no it is a toxic chemical , end of

I'm fine with not wanting to use Roundup

What I meant was, focussing purely on Roundup ( what will we do if they ban it? Zero till doesn't work without Roundup ? We need Roundup etc etc ) was reductionist thinking. Focussing on a single issue
Roundup is currently important to the "system", but isn't the system itself . . .

So no, those comments weren't aimed at you at all, but people who can't see a future without Roundup . . .
 

B'o'B

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Rutland
I'm fine with not wanting to use Roundup

What I meant was, focussing purely on Roundup ( what will we do if they ban it? Zero till doesn't work without Roundup ? We need Roundup etc etc ) was reductionist thinking. Focussing on a single issue
Roundup is currently important to the "system", but isn't the system itself . . .

So no, those comments weren't aimed at you at all, but people who can't see a future without Roundup . . .

I think many of us do see a future without Glyphosate.
What we don’t see is a present viable no-till solution without Glyphosate.
Even if Glyphosate remained available I would like an alternate method as reliance on one product is not great which ever way you look at it.
It is not TFF’s fault that there is no method that comes close to being as effective and cheap to establish crops using no-till.
At present I am convinced that establishing crops no-till using Glyphosate is better for the world and people than any of the alternatives currently available.
@jonnyjon may not like that, but it is clear that he has no better solution to offer. And while I agree with him it is disappointing, that is facts of the situation.
 

jonnyjon

Member
I think many of us do see a future without Glyphosate.
What we don’t see is a present viable no-till solution without Glyphosate.
Even if Glyphosate remained available I would like an alternate method as reliance on one product is not great which ever way you look at it.
It is not TFF’s fault that there is no method that comes close to being as effective and cheap to establish crops using no-till.
At present I am convinced that establishing crops no-till using Glyphosate is better for the world and people than any of the alternatives currently available.
@jonnyjon may not like that, but it is clear that he has no better solution to offer. And while I agree with him it is disappointing, that is facts of the situation.
As I originally said, I'm a big advocate of no till but it's too reliant on a chemical that is at big risk of being withdrawn, regardless of whether we think it's safe or not. I have invested a lot in no till and I'm wondering if it's the right thing to have done because I see no long-term future in gly, if it was banned at short notice there is no plan b that I'm aware of, hence my original question, how do you farm a no till system without roundup? A genuine question that degenerated into a farce
 

Bury the Trash

Member
Mixed Farmer
That's the most constructive comment you have to offer, pretty sad
It explains the subtle spelling difference between 'no' and 'know' … (y).

but that's off topic i'm afraid :(
….. so is your 'Glyphosate subject' posting

.....the simple answer is start to a new thread "how do you farm a no till system without roundup?" (y)



........and so ends yet another of my wonderfully constructive posts :whistle:(y)
 
As I originally said, I'm a big advocate of no till but it's too reliant on a chemical that is at big risk of being withdrawn, regardless of whether we think it's safe or not. I have invested a lot in no till and I'm wondering if it's the right thing to have done because I see no long-term future in gly, if it was banned at short notice there is no plan b that I'm aware of, hence my original question, how do you farm a no till system without roundup? A genuine question that degenerated into a farce

When its banned you can go back to soil erosion and ploughing but in the meantime enjoy the benefits of no tillage.

It may not get banned you know.
 

B'o'B

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Rutland
As I originally said, I'm a big advocate of no till but it's too reliant on a chemical that is at big risk of being withdrawn, regardless of whether we think it's safe or not. I have invested a lot in no till and I'm wondering if it's the right thing to have done because I see no long-term future in gly, if it was banned at short notice there is no plan b that I'm aware of, hence my original question, how do you farm a no till system without roundup? A genuine question that degenerated into a farce

Simple, if Glyphosate was to be banned tomorrow you have 4 options:
1) get out your plough and cultivators.*
2) go pasture based livestock and give up cropping.*
3) give up farming.*
4) invent a new no-till farming method.​
*Numbers 1-3 will apply for as long as it takes for 4 to be realised.

But as has been said before why not start your own thread on this subject? It really isn't relevant to this thread.
 
There are 2 products we could used if registered
Paraquat
Glufosinate amonium
Both were withdrawn /banned because there was a better safer cheaper product containing glyphosate

If notill is banned because glyphosate is banned before a safer more cost effective product is discovered
Then ploughing and 50 %of acres will be livestock based probably sheep
Cattle are to big big risk now because of widespread tb which was eliminated hear in the 1950s
The livestock will replace spring cropping this would hit the ground nesting birds ,on the arable land the soil living animals will also suffer badly due to being rolled over every year with the plough

An alternative may be enviromentle payments and long runs of spring barley as the barley barrons of the 1950s practiced
 
Too simplistic. Some chemicals are far more toxic than others. Just look at the range of LD50 / LC50s for different actives on the market. I am taking pesticide toxicity a lot more seriously recently following some conversations with some clued up biochemist friends of mine.

I suppose the only way its simplistic is that we don't know the long term vs short term effects. The principal is sound though.

I wouldn't think LD50's are that important in agricultural pesticides if used professionally.

However I'm interested to hear what your biochemist friends are saying
 

Big-Al

Member
@Fred
Those of you who have moved to a genuine direct drilling system have you actually
1 Saved money
2 Increased profit

We saved £25000 in diesel in the first year alone, plus the sale of the big crawler and associated cultivation kit more than paid for the new dd kit,
so we bought a big NH 9090 baler and 3 bale sledge as well, and still had money to fund a new command center with coffee machine and a big biscuit tin,
because at the end of the day, your office is where most money is made reading the forum pages perfecting your system.
We still use a small tine 8m cultivator to chit OSR only at 25mm (1inch old money) going in to wheat then spray gly and drill but using it like a beefed up straw rake really, we also have a carrier type machine which we had anyway but only working at 25mm. and low disturbance subsoiler on the headlands on some fields.
So yes yields about the same on the crops we have planted and in line with other yields from other systems in our area.
A bit more management regards cropping moving to two Autumn and a spring crop after the cover crop planted in the autumn, the real reason we moved to this system was black grass and not disturbing the top at the critical drilling time, with the less soil you move at that time the less black grass infests your crop, so its vital you get that right, as said before on the forum drill earlier in Autumn and later in the spring.

But also you dont have to do true direct drilling, drill in to cultivated ground as well and at the end of the day its up to you how much you do to mix in your system, we have a JD750 and have a bit of heavy ground. been at it 3 years now and some of our ground has not been ploughed since 1996 on the old Vaddy
system we did have.

We would have knocked the system on the head if we weren't making money. But saying that it suits some people but not others its a mind thing.

Regards
 
Savings
Less slug pellets than next door only use them on rape establishment
Back to the levels we used before the power Harrow when we rolled between every cultivation
Fuel only 3 litres per ha for crop establishment plus 10 litres for moling every 4 to 6 years which we would do any way
By having a diverse rotation we can drill double the area we would if we cultivated
Controlled traffic reduces wheelings to 15 % of the land area
Moling on these wheelings removes them
Less rutting ,not working when the soil is too wet ( we should all do this any way )
Yields this cannot be quantified as we have no comparisons that would be reliable Some field and some years the yields are higher and some lower

The one certainty is that in wet years later drilling for black grass will leave cultivated farm in a 100% spring cereal cropping year or they will make a mess of their soil
With notill we have to drill wintercrops earlier on heavier soils but then need to plan black grass control with spring crops in the rotation
If I look back over the last 40 years there are 14 that drilling wheat after 5 October was a waste of time and lost money
High prices £150 feed wheat help the high per acre cost systems justify them but when prices are low the low overall cost come into their own

The biggest benefits from notill is the improvement in soil conditions without the need large amounts of livestock waste
Stewardship pays for covercrops
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 80 42.3%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 66 34.9%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 15.9%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 7 3.7%

Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

  • 1,292
  • 1
As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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