Does Direct Drilling actually save money

[Stan Hay]

I run a Claydon system (rake and 3m hybrid) and the saving is time which is huge.
It allows me to farm as well as have a beet and direct drilling business.
The contracting is what gave us the income to get into land ownership .
This spring has been very challenging in the southern part of NZ with 2x monthly rainfall for about 4 months in a row. Every dry day from the start of Oct until 2 days ago has been needed to get the beet sown.Of my 134 ha operation about 40 ha is spring barley. I was able to sow this over a 30 hr period one weekend . Under a conventional plough system I would hardly have had time to do the ploughing let get it worked and sown.
The initial cost of the drill for 134 ha is obviously a stretch but I intend to still be using it for a long time.

 

[chaffcutter]

@Stan Hay what drill are you using, Cross Slot? If so can I be cheeky and ask how much they cost in NZ ?

 

[YELROM]

@Stan Hay what drill are you using, Cross Slot? If so can I be cheeky and ask how much they cost in NZ ?

I run a Claydon system (rake and 3m hybrid) and the saving is time which is huge.

 

[chaffcutter]

Oops not paying attention!

Sorry

 

[Kiwi Pete]

The main constraints overseas as I see it is the impediment to using livestock as tools, and overvalued land which makes continual cashcropping more necessary, thus the focus is pulled away from the positives, (continual growing plants) towards the more negative ends (some form of death or destruction is "needed to make the system work, as it always has done") even though it isn't really working - more made to work?

It possibly isn't as apparent the flaws of this "death", when in a non-brittle environment, as the earth simply covers herself up - but you can work with this, and keep it covered up.
Heavy unselective grazing, crimp rolling, shading, and other methods of stunting and subduing existing crops - as opposed to termination or incorporation can make all the difference in a system - or growing the odd crop simply for the soil instead of for sale can; but the main hurdle is probably the cost of land and seed, and of course ourselves.

 

[snarling bee]

We are going to be forced to with this one, how many people are sick, dying or already dead way before their time? We are poisoning ourselves eating a diet of processed chemical laden sh!t that we call food, this world survived for ? years producing food without a toxic soup of chemicals. Bayer and their kind have done a great job convincing us all that we can't farm without their poison, they are responsible for the suffering and death of more people the all the despots in history

There are lots of natural things that are not good, for example, Ebola. There are also lots of modern chemicals, particularly pharmaceuticals, that are good.
You can either feed the current population using current techniques or go back to the middle ages, with a life expectancy of 35, and farm with oxen and organics.

 

[jonnyjon]

There are lots of natural things that are not good, for example, Ebola. There are also lots of modern chemicals, particularly pharmaceuticals, that are good.
You can either feed the current population using current techniques or go back to the middle ages, with a life expectancy of 35, and farm with oxen and organics.

Really

 

[Will Blackburn]

Really

You were right, life expectancy is plummeting!

 

[snarling bee]

Really

A simplistic view - but so is yours.

 

[graham99]

I run a Claydon system (rake and 3m hybrid) and the saving is time which is huge.
It allows me to farm as well as have a beet and direct drilling business.
The contracting is what gave us the income to get into land ownership .
This spring has been very challenging in the southern part of NZ with 2x monthly rainfall for about 4 months in a row. Every dry day from the start of Oct until 2 days ago has been needed to get the beet sown.Of my 134 ha operation about 40 ha is spring barley. I was able to sow this over a 30 hr period one weekend . Under a conventional plough system I would hardly have had time to do the ploughing let get it worked and sown.
The initial cost of the drill for 134 ha is obviously a stretch but I intend to still be using it for a long time.

so contracting got you into land owner ship .and in stead buying another tractor ,you brought land .get ready to go bust.
the labs did not back down on capital gains because they wanted to .
capital gains are going to be very hard to get from now on.
google japan from 85 on wards,the japan way ,is going to be the future ,if trump lets us live.
today i do not now of any farmer's who own there land from farming. they always had to have had the wife working in town ,to pay the bank