Is a straw rake ever enough?

[farmerfred86]

I see quite a few straw rakes for sale and cant help think there will be many in the nettles in years to come. However the idea seems right.
I've always thought though that if you feel the need to use a straw rake then you probably need to cultivate... even a shallow cultivation?
Anyone using a straw rake and given up or getting on well with it?
Thinking that a Mzuir rezult could be ok with its discs but perhaps a light set of discs would be better and cheaper? The terra star looks like half the job to me?

 

[Hereward]

Straw rake is a halfway house, look at Claydons, started with a rake, now onto the TerraStar, it will be a cultivator next.

And why not gets a proper germination of weeds, deals with the slugs etc.

 

[TWF]

We have had a rake. It was ok for leveling and spreading poorly chopped or spread straw ,which we had with a Case combine. But because of the very high levels of black grass we had four years ago we started doing less strip till with the Claydon and went back to my scatch till (only working soil to 50mm and moling every 3to 4 years at a wide gps spacing) we found delayed drilling and strip till not working well enough because of the pressure of slugs.. Two or three passes with the rake didn't seem to kill enough. We also found not moving the ground just delayed the on set of black grass later. The rake came into its own after drilling withe the Claydon as it leveled the ground and patted it down with its rubber roller realy well. We also put Averdex on with Vaderstad Bio drill mouned on the rake. The other place it worked really well was on top of the shallow till after two or three weeks of weathering , making a realy fine seed bed for all this loverly black grass to grow.
Roll on four or five years and I feel we are now on top of our black grass problem at a tolerable rate through rotation and now the worst fields that have had two rotations with S.Barley in them are fairly clean, so I am ready to go back to DD ing. But for spring drilling I am still going to work land vary shallow hopefully 30-40 mm after chopped ww straw ready for sping barley. Being smaller now and trying to get machinery costs back to nearer to £30/ac l will try to use a Vaderstad carrier with the new cutting discs .This will replace a rake and a cultivator.

 

[Brisel]

I have a 15m Claydon rake here and am happy with it. It seemed like a luxury at the time but a combine with a poor chopper & spreader justifies one IMO. It is also good at teasing out lumps left by balers. Very good at killing slug eggs and moving 1/2” deeper than the last pass. The best time to kill slugs is 1-2 days predrilling in wheat after osr. It saved me a pass with the pelleter.

It’s a straw rake, not a cultivator. I already had a Carrier for making proper stale seedbeds or loosening the top inch. I tried the Mzuri Rezult but felt the discs would be best on the back not the front and you had to lift on the headlands which drops all the lumps off, defeating the object of pulling them out across the field.

Yes, I think there will be a few parked in the nettles in future but it’s a good tool where you have straw residue problems.

P.S. if it’s not combining weather, don’t rake. The straw or stubble will ball up in the tines and you’ll have more mess than when you started.

 

[Brisel]

@TWF Please may you post a pic of your rake? It sounds like you’ve made some useful mods to it.

 

[farmerfred86]

Thanks Brisel - Interesting post.

Interesting what you say about the Mzuri. I thought perhaps it looked the better option but then you are back to cultivating by using the discs. We had one on demo and did like it, can't remember though if you could lift the discs completely.
Where do you see the rake for black grass control, useful tool or not? As you say - its not a cultivator. I'm wondering if its the right tool to get a chit, maybe a second chit (so you kill some with a second pass and then spray?)

 

[Banana Bar]

Thanks Brisel - Interesting post.

Interesting what you say about the Mzuri. I thought perhaps it looked the better option but then you are back to cultivating by using the discs. We had one on demo and did like it, can't remember though if you could lift the discs completely.
Where do you see the rake for black grass control, useful tool or not? As you say - its not a cultivator. I'm wondering if its the right tool to get a chit, maybe a second chit (so you kill some with a second pass and then spray?)

If I was doing this I would seriously consider a carrier or a Kelly harrow

 

[farmerfred86]

Had a look at a Kelly Harrow recently. Not convinced its quite the right tool but ideal in a cover cropping situation.
The carrier is an excellent tool but again you are back to cultivation... and if it rains behind a 1 or 2 inch cultivation it will be horrible! I do feel though that glyphosate resistance will be rapid if we don't continue with a sensible cultivation when needed.

 

[SilliamWhale]

Had a look at a Kelly Harrow recently. Not convinced its quite the right tool but ideal in a cover cropping situation.
The carrier is an excellent tool but again you are back to cultivation... and if it rains behind a 1 or 2 inch cultivation it will be horrible! I do feel though that glyphosate resistance will be rapid if we don't continue with a sensible cultivation when needed.

Depends how often you use it. Not sure min tillage uses less. I think harrows are a waste of time - you may as well find a machine that can cultivate very very shallowly if chopped straw has not been well spread.

 

[farmerfred86]

I always thought the same - but I'm coming round to the idea. If you are going to cultivate you may as well do it properly. If not then not at all, or simply a straw rake to sort residue and slugs. The black grass is where I'm unsure. Don't like the idea of relying completely on glyphosate!

 

[TWF]

@TWF Please may you post a pic of your rake? It sounds like you’ve made some useful mods to it.

https://classifieds.thefarmingforum...5e8c55dbfc57a487eb45eb257d223fde5bfe139692b7d

There is some pictures of the rake on the link above and a link to Tilso rollers and a bit about black grass.

http://www.tillso.co.uk/strawrake.html

 

[Devon James]

Wox Agri Supermaxx is a useful tool for us.

 

[Brisel]

Thanks Brisel - Interesting post.

Interesting what you say about the Mzuri. I thought perhaps it looked the better option but then you are back to cultivating by using the discs. We had one on demo and did like it, can't remember though if you could lift the discs completely.
Where do you see the rake for black grass control, useful tool or not? As you say - its not a cultivator. I'm wondering if its the right tool to get a chit, maybe a second chit (so you kill some with a second pass and then spray?)

Yes, you can lift the discs completely. The tines too but it would be too heavy so you’d have to carry most of the weight with the tractor.

Thanks for the Tillso link. That looks like a useful tool. I agree about the pudding you’d create by working the top 2” only but if it’s that wet you shouldn’t be in the field - that’s of little comfort when you’re trying to get on in October into soup...

If I had to choose between a rake and a light disc/roll combi like a Carrier then the Carrier would win every time, especially with blackgrass. I’m fortunate to have both options available and I can see why Mzuri tried to fill the gap with the Rezult. See if you get a demo with one. And train your combine driver better!

 

[Andy Howard]

I rarely use ours. I stopped after having rouged brome for 3 hours that the rake had dragged from the headland into the field. The brome angle was in a lovely straight line at the same angle the rake went. I don’t think our weaving one does anything for BG. I think just rolling would do a better job,

 

[DrWazzock]

I found that my Spaldings tined weeder made a good rake with the tines in backwards. It would take a heap in and let it out slowly which helped where I had backed up the combine to miss a badger hole or something and left a heap of pods.

I reckon it looked to be doing some good exposing slug eggs to drying and creating a micro tilth. I got good establishment of wheat after using it on a wet slug infested rape stubble last autumn. Pity it's burning off now with drought, err, moisture deficit.

 

[E_B]

I found that my Spaldings tined weeder made a good rake with the tines in backwards. It would take a heap in and let it out slowly which helped where I had backed up the combine to miss a badger hole or something and left a heap of pods.

I reckon it looked to be doing some good exposing slug eggs to drying and creating a micro tilth. I got good establishment of wheat after using it on a wet slug infested rape stubble last autumn. Pity it's burning off now with drought, err, moisture deficit.

You said the D word... prepare for imminent chastisation.