Grain / seed cleaning

Banana Bar

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Bury St Edmunds
If its clean enough... A few hours spent each year unblocking coulters and it would be a pain. Seems like an obvious step though, especially having lost redigo deter and now reducing seed treatments anyway. I like to think that gravity separating gives a good advantage against small seeded grass weeds and in a year like this you could be home saving a lot of small seed?
Could always cut the front of the lorry off and mount on a low loader!

But I bet you’ve drilled stuff off the heap, have you seen a difference?
 

grommet

Member
Location
The shire...
Gravity separation is essential, you want the heaviest seed possible-more "mother" to grow the seed = more tons in the combine.
Why wouldnt you want to give your seed ( next years profit ) the best chance possible?
Blocked coulters, fudging it in off the heap is just a bodge in my opinion.
If you take it to its logical conclusion, why bother spraying it? sack your agronomist, spin it on, sell your fancy drill - dont worry about soil bed.
plus Anyone who says we have lost all the decent seed treatments, doesnt know anything about seed treatments.
 

Chae1

Member
Location
Aberdeenshire
Gravity separation is essential, you want the heaviest seed possible-more "mother" to grow the seed = more tons in the combine.
Why wouldnt you want to give your seed ( next years profit ) the best chance possible?
Blocked coulters, fudging it in off the heap is just a bodge in my opinion.
If you take it to its logical conclusion, why bother spraying it? sack your agronomist, spin it on, sell your fancy drill - dont worry about soil bed.
plus Anyone who says we have lost all the decent seed treatments, doesnt know anything about seed treatments.
Do you run a seed dresser by any chance?

Not treating or dressing seed isn't costing me anything in lost yield I don't think.

I've a field of c1 seed costing £520/t and one with 5th generation laureate out heap at £120/t and can't see any difference at moment

If I stopped spraying or cultivating I think I'd see a drop in yield.
 

grommet

Member
Location
The shire...
Do you run a seed dresser by any chance?

Not treating or dressing seed isn't costing me anything in lost yield I don't think.

I've a field of c1 seed costing £520/t and one with 5th generation laureate out heap at £120/t and can't see any difference at moment

If I stopped spraying or cultivating I think I'd see a drop in yield.

Jesus, i knew you scotsmen were tight......
Unfortunately i do not own a seed dresser, or even a farm, but having worked on them all my life i can see the benefits of giving your seed crop due diligence.
The old boys used to talk about entire crops being wiped out by Bunt, Smut, and all the other diseases we have forgotten about.
As clever as we think we are, mother nature will always find a way to sit us on our behinds - current worldwide situation a prime example.
 

Steevo

Member
Location
Gloucestershire
Jesus, i knew you scotsmen were tight......
Unfortunately i do not own a seed dresser, or even a farm, but having worked on them all my life i can see the benefits of giving your seed crop due diligence.
The old boys used to talk about entire crops being wiped out by Bunt, Smut, and all the other diseases we have forgotten about.
As clever as we think we are, mother nature will always find a way to sit us on our behinds - current worldwide situation a prime example.

Today we can test for diseases on seed though.

Chemical seed treatment is not applied purely based on agronomic need like our other plant applied chemistry. It's based on the idea of prevention (i.e. better safe than sorry, this will reduce the risk, if present, to zero) and profit (if we treat it all we're selling something extra we can make a margin on).
 

grommet

Member
Location
The shire...
Today we can test for diseases on seed though.

Chemical seed treatment is not applied purely based on agronomic need like our other plant applied chemistry. It's based on the idea of prevention (i.e. better safe than sorry, this will reduce the risk, if present, to zero) and profit (if we treat it all we're selling something extra we can make a margin on).

At the risk of sounding stupid ( it has been known ) by testing for disease, you mean on the seed at that particular point in time? does that take into account soil borne disease or one carried by a third party when the crop is in the field? Im presuming if a seed has say for example a small chance of smut at the testing stage, that % increases dramatically due to external factors - weather etc.
 
At the risk of sounding stupid ( it has been known ) by testing for disease, you mean on the seed at that particular point in time? does that take into account soil borne disease or one carried by a third party when the crop is in the field? Im presuming if a seed has say for example a small chance of smut at the testing stage, that % increases dramatically due to external factors - weather etc.

As a rule of thumb its good to have the parent seed treated to minimise soil borne disease.

I don't think it necessarily matters to have the largest seed only as parent. Or put it this way when I buy seed with a lower tgw than my own I'm told it doesn't matter.
 

e3120

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Northumberland
Choosing the biggest seeds is going to cost more per seed. If I was forewarned that they would be going into a late/crap seedbed, then I might consider that a wise investment, otherwise not so sure.
 

bankrupt

Member
Location
EX17/20
Tgw of my £520/t c1 was less than stuff out the heap.
Same has happened here.

FSS often being found more expensive per acre because the tgw was so much lower on the expensive seed bought in through the trade.

Nowadays we've gone back to planting more by the cwt/acre rather than seeds/sq m, on the grounds that this is really the best measure of the total seed energy available to establish a crop.

So, FSS still rules, OK?
 

Hjwise

Member
Mixed Farmer
We’ve always used FSS until we feel a new variety is worth paying a bit more for. The last couple of years we have grown about 50 ha on a seed contract - then use some of that heap for next years seed.
 
Given that we are trying to use much less seed treatment I am looking at cleaning our own seed. I'm not certain that gravity separation is essential, is anyone using something similar to below?


Coming to the conclusion you don’t even need to clean the seed if you go with a substantial seed rate. Starting at 250kg last week in October then up to 300kg mid November onwards.
 

Colin

Member
Location
Perthshire
We use a denis d200, crank the wind up as high as she will go and it gives a pretty bold sample. Means you have to drill more kg but if the seed is tested clean we don't treat. Got a treater as well that we can use. Just treat enough as we go. Need to rig up some tatie boxes with solid sides and bottoms to we can dress the seed into them instead of bags, then just need to tipple into seed hopper.
 

PostHarvest

Member
Location
Warwick
I like the look of the Farm King rotary cleaners available in the US and Canada. Is there anything similar available in the U.K.
Marot have been around for years although they aren't trailer mounted Customers where I installed them have loved them. Zenin, Kongskilde and Alvan Blanch also make them
 

Farmer Roy

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
NSW, Newstralya
I have quite often used seed “just off the heap” for planting, without any cleaning.
If the sample is a bit dirty or chaffy, running it through my Grain Vac a few times generally cleans it up fairly well
 

Walton2

Member
Same has happened here.

FSS often being found more expensive per acre because the tgw was so much lower on the expensive seed bought in through the trade.

Nowadays we've gone back to planting more by the cwt/acre rather than seeds/sq m, on the grounds that this is really the best measure of the total seed energy available to establish a crop.

So, FSS still rules, OK?
.
I have quite often used seed “just off the heap” for planting, without any cleaning.
If the sample is a bit dirty or chaffy, running it through my Grain Vac a few times generally cleans it up fairly well
 

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

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