Expensive mistakes?

[Bully]

Has anybody seriously regretted any choice of drill/coulter selection after investing a lot of time, money and energy into it? Currently in the process of choosing a set of ld coulters for a 6m Horsch Sprinter we have bought specifically for this job to establish cereals and beans. Everybody I speak to has conflicting views on this though and there seems no logical step to find the best setup for us without spending thousands!

We were originally sold on this principle by speaking to various users of jj Metcalfe openers on a variety of drills but now the Dutch seem to have overtaken them in popularity. Our agronomist is trying his best to fit something wider with paired outlets as he’s not happy with 10” row spacings. We were confident with this before but now it seems to be another sticking point. We don’t need a fert outlet atm so is purely for seed only and will be used in dd situations as well as into shallow and deep worked ground. Also into potentially thick cover at times too.

The amount of research and balls it must take to invest in a fairly new concept of dd drill must be mind boggling and I’m sure someone will have regrets about it further down the line!

Without going over everything that’s been said on here before regarding coulter selection does anybody have any views? Many thanks

 

[James Hughes]

I think you can get far too hung up on drill choice. For DD flexibility you want a disc drill and a tine drill ideally for different situations. But start with a tine if you are going to use just one.

I started by buying an old moore unidrill and adapting our existing Horsch sprinter with Borgault points - good because you can play around with different point widths.

https://www.agri-linc.com/parts/bourgault-parts.html

To begin with a 2-3 inch wide point is optimum in my view, because it gives a nice tilth as your soil adapts to no till in the first 3 years. You can then get narrower later.

As soil improves you can move less and less of it, so disc becomes more suitable over time with DD, to avoid chitting weed seeds.

We are in a position 5 years in where we are largely avoiding pre-em herbicides and reducing all other inputs by moving very little soil with a Weaving GD disc drill. Still use the horsch tine drill in some situations though.

Hope this helps.

 

[James Hughes]

Also - 10 inch row spacings are fine. Mine are 12 inch and we don't see any yield reduction. (to caveat that, I suppose you could have a problem with a very thin canopy that hadn't tillered well)

If you buy a 3 inch borgualt point to begin with, this brings it down to 7" between the rows which is no problem. Wider rows (wouldn't want to go above 12" though) = less soil disturbance, less weeds, less herbicides, less fungal disease (because crop canopy can breathe). Conventional agronomists are often very stuck in their ways.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

I think you can get far too hung up on drill choice. For DD flexibility you want a disc drill and a tine drill ideally for different situations. But start with a tine if you are going to use just one.

I started by buying an old moore unidrill and adapting our existing Horsch sprinter with Borgault points - good because you can play around with different point widths.

https://www.agri-linc.com/parts/bourgault-parts.html

To begin with a 2-3 inch wide point is optimum in my view, because it gives a nice tilth as your soil adapts to no till in the first 3 years. You can then get narrower later.

As soil improves you can move less and less of it, so disc becomes more suitable over time with DD, to avoid chitting weed seeds.

We are in a position 5 years in where we are largely avoiding pre-em herbicides and reducing all other inputs by moving very little soil with a Weaving GD disc drill. Still use the horsch tine drill in some situations though.

Hope this helps.

Spot on, there, chap

 

[gorgous]

Bought a 4m sprinter last year came with metcalf points bought some dutch oponers to go on it. Tried the metcalfs with osr and some oats. Used the dutch 5" open back with cereals spreads in a band well would recommend these over the metcalfs. Saw the bourgault points at cereals if I was starting again would seriously consider them. But am quite happy with the dutchs. Was speaking to Horsch support engineer at local dealer day and he recommended the Dutch over metcalf as with the stronger spring setup on sprinter he thought the metcalf point angle was wrong. He said the weaker springs on co drills work better with metcalf as this gives better point angle. Hope this is of some help bit like anything in farming trying to find the right thing for your soil/ system is a gamble.