Hello from worc's

[Crf450]

Hello, I've been experimenting with strip till drilling for 3yrs. Have made many mistakes, but with enough success to push on, couldn't afford new equipment so have home built drill and stubble rake. Aim is to move from original plough combi drill via min till, strip till to no till, and a pipe dream which I think is ultimately fss spun into cover crop for real no till....
Have got to stage 3 strip till, cropping this Autumn WW WO and black oat vetch cover crop. Any advice on drilling SW into CC with drill based on bourgault speed loc system much appreciated.

 

[Brisel]

Good luck with it all!

Can you post some pictures of your home made equipment please? Some thoughts on why you built them like that would be useful too.

 

[Crf450]

Pics show in order drill on first trial, coulter arrangements and then finally a demo strip using the knife coulter on three legs to see quality of slot closure and soil disturbance. This is the knife I plan to use for drilling SW into black oat vetch cover crop in a replication of agrovista lamport trial.
I built the drill as a test mule and the bourgault adapters are perfect for this, on the second and third photo I've got fitted 7" a shares 3"spoons and 1/2" knives which I used for testing effect on black grass germination.

 

[martian]

Good luck with that, it looks a tidy set-up. My observations though: we used some of those 1/2 inch Bourgault knives on our Kockerling drill (replacing the 4 inch spade shaped standard tine) and drilled some spring beans last year. Where the ground was wet, they flicked up soggy clods which occasionally blocked the coulters, so we ended up moving the seed shoot stupidly high to avoid the problem. It didn't work. Where the ground was dry, everything worked fine, though much more disturbance than we are used to with the JD disc drill.

Also, I'd be a bit nervous of gathering long strings of vetch up when you drill your SW into the cover crop. Look forward to hearing how it goes.

 

[Crf450]

Good luck with that, it looks a tidy set-up. My observations though: we used some of those 1/2 inch Bourgault knives on our Kockerling drill (replacing the 4 inch spade shaped standard tine) and drilled some spring beans last year. Where the ground was wet, they flicked up soggy clods which occasionally blocked the coulters, so we ended up moving the seed shoot stupidly high to avoid the problem. It didn't work. Where the ground was dry, everything worked fine, though much more disturbance than we are used to with the JD disc drill.

Also, I'd be a bit nervous of gathering long strings of vetch up when you drill your SW into the cover crop. Look forward to hearing how it goes.

Thanks for info, with only 60ac to drill I hope a low forward speed will reduce disturbance to acceptable levels. Will also experiment with tine angle. I'm still planning on broadcasting untreated seed for a couple of tramlines to see if cc will hide it enough from the birds, will probably only feed the slugs, but you never know without trying.