Is no till the only way to save soils?

[Two Tone]

Kit, or as we call it, equipment, designs are one ting that is severally lacking when discussing all soils in all areas.

It's like using an adjustable wrench and a vise grip to rebuild an engine. You might get a few of the easy bolts out, but you're going to need a proper tool set to get the job done and done in any sort of working fashion.

Here, we have bean pickers that pick beans. Berry pickers that pick berries. Nut harvesters to pickup nuts. Combines to harvest grains. We even use a row planter to plant corn, beans and vegetables, yet use the same grain drill for planting all other crops. How can this work? Well, it is the disk ripper, plough, disk, harrow and rollers that prepare the soil so that that one drill can do the job.

In no-till/dd there is no plough or disk. You're expecting the drill/planter to do too much in all soils and all climates, planting all crops. Of course we're going to hear of more failures and more "dd wont work here" stories.

Just look at the Mzuri or the Sumo dts planters out now. A few years ago they were like the wolf walking outside the sheep pasture. Everyone had their gun loaded and their finger on the safety. Now they are accepted tools and have opened up the conservation method to a lot of folks that used to not be able to make it work.

How I wish I had even 10% of the brands and models of planters available here that you folks do over there. Here, what few factory models are available, are built solely for the mid section of the country. The corn and soybean belts.

Often too much emphasis is placed on "management" and not enough on kit design. Sure, it does take a different management approach, but so what if the crop is doomed from the get go because it could not be put in right. Some get on great with the deere 750a. Others get on with the dts. There could not be two more different bits than those two. Just an hour drive south of me the deere single disk works fine. But I have far too high of failure rate with it. I do however have great luck with the tine seeder designs and even better with the Mzuri or Sumo dts type systems. I have to cobble together my own version of them as I do not have access to buying those tools here.

But if I were relegated to using only the deere, I would go back to the plough. Kit design plays as big of role in my ability to continue no-til/dd as does learning the new management decisions.

Very well said indeed!
Far too much emphasis placed on "management" when the only management decision should be: Dare I risk investing in a system that is far from tried and tested on my farm and is it affordable?

I cannot believe how many of these so called wonder drills are on the market 2nd hand within a year of being bought by the first owner here. That sort of tells a big story doesn't it?

 

[doorknob]

I'm pretty sure mzuri would get a machine out to you if you had the budget to make it happen. I imagine they'd love a machine working in the US. They have some in New Zealand, although admittedly through an importer.

It's really not about the budget. I can make a new Mzuri pay in just a few years. It's the support that does not let me buy one, ship it, and use it. I dont even have support for my components locally. I have to go 7 hours drive to get parts. So I buy used and carry my own support on hand.

If Mzuri ever did wish to try the US market, I'd sure like to help. But the American farmer is not ready to accept change and making decisions on their own. Tradition and factory brain washing is a powerful force to break.

 

[doorknob]

Very well said indeed!
Far too much emphasis placed on "management" when the only management decision should be: Dare I risk investing in a system that is far from tried and tested on my farm and is it affordable?

I cannot believe how many of these so called wonder drills are on the market 2nd hand within a year of being bought by the first owner here. That sort of tells a big story doesn't it?

Try not to be so harsh on the "wonder drills". At least you have factories trying to find new ways to make things work. It might not work for you and your soils and management, but it may work well elsewhere.
Perhaps you can find a second hand drill that comes close to what you see can work in your soils and have it modified a bit?

Have you put the pencil to straw removal or residue sizing and how it may help a seeder work in your soils?

I'm rained out for a day or two, so I will try to get some pictures of my newest cobbled together monstrosity and try to show a few points that I learned I need to change to work "here". And my soils are a dream compared what most of you have to deal with. I have no stones, and my soils are not half as sticky as yours. Yet even I can not make a factory drill from the midwest work well enough to use all the time.

 

[SilliamWhale]

Very well said indeed!
Far too much emphasis placed on "management" when the only management decision should be: Dare I risk investing in a system that is far from tried and tested on my farm and is it affordable?

I cannot believe how many of these so called wonder drills are on the market 2nd hand within a year of being bought by the first owner here. That sort of tells a big story doesn't it?

Its not for everyone for sure but. What about all the used ploughs and vaderstad rapids for sale?

 

[Two Tone]

Try not to be so harsh on the "wonder drills". At least you have factories trying to find new ways to make things work. It might not work for you and your soils and management, but it may work well elsewhere.
Perhaps you can find a second hand drill that comes close to what you see can work in your soils and have it modified a bit?

Have you put the pencil to straw removal or residue sizing and how it may help a seeder work in your soils?

I'm rained out for a day or two, so I will try to get some pictures of my newest cobbled together monstrosity and try to show a few points that I learned I need to change to work "here". And my soils are a dream compared what most of you have to deal with. I have no stones, and my soils are not half as sticky as yours. Yet even I can not make a factory drill from the midwest work well enough to use all the time.

Thanks. It would be really great to see what you have cobbled together.

Yes we might have loads of factories trying to make stuff that works. In fact, there are far too many of them desperate to drum up some sales.

We also have loads of dealers trying to sell the most inappropriate equipment to farmers who really can't justify it..
Worst of all, it works some years but is completely wrong in other years.
Best thing is to be as flexible and open minded as you can and try to chose to use the right equipment each year rather than the same each year.

Is it Occam's razor that suggests that all thing considered, the usual answer to most problems is the simplest one?

 

[Will7]

Far too much emphasis placed on "management" when the only management decision should be: Dare I risk investing in a system that is far from tried and tested on my farm and is it affordable?

I am sorry, I have to disagree. Management becomes more important the more accurate the system becomes. Accurate in that you have to get everything right to make it work whereas a plough can cover a multitude of sins.

I would suggest there are a proportionately higher number of average farmers establishing crops conventionally than by direct drilling. Any old muppet can black a field over, chase clods from one end to the other (and then in a dry time chase them back again) and drill it.

How are you ever going to get the system tried and tested on your farm if you don't actually do it?? I am not a direct drilling diehard but I am finding in my transition from clod chaser to direct driller that it is the management that is key and it will be ME and MY management that determines whether I can get direct drilling to work or not; not the drill or the "system" I have read about on here.

The only way to really learn is to get things wrong. The skill comes in understanding why and coming out stronger and hopefully more profitable.

There endeth the sermon!

 

[SilliamWhale]

I am sorry, I have to disagree. Management becomes more important the more accurate the system becomes. Accurate in that you have to get everything right to make it work whereas a plough can cover a multitude of sins.

I would suggest there are a proportionately higher number of average farmers establishing crops conventionally than by direct drilling. Any old muppet can black a field over, chase clods from one end to the other (and then in a dry time chase them back again) and drill it.

How are you ever going to get the system tried and tested on your farm if you don't actually do it?? I am not a direct drilling diehard but I am finding in my transition from clod chaser to direct driller that it is the management that is key and it will be ME and MY management that determines whether I can get direct drilling to work or not; not the drill or the "system" I have read about on here.

The only way to really learn is to get things wrong. The skill comes in understanding why and coming out stronger and hopefully more profitable.

There endeth the sermon!

Agree with you. Basically the ball is in your own court. How can it be any other way?

 

[Two Tone]

I am sorry, I have to disagree. Management becomes more important the more accurate the system becomes. Accurate in that you have to get everything right to make it work whereas a plough can cover a multitude of sins.

I would suggest there are a proportionately higher number of average farmers establishing crops conventionally than by direct drilling. Any old muppet can black a field over, chase clods from one end to the other (and then in a dry time chase them back again) and drill it.

How are you ever going to get the system tried and tested on your farm if you don't actually do it?? I am not a direct drilling diehard but I am finding in my transition from clod chaser to direct driller that it is the management that is key and it will be ME and MY management that determines whether I can get direct drilling to work or not; not the drill or the "system" I have read about on here.

The only way to really learn is to get things wrong. The skill comes in understanding why and coming out stronger and hopefully more profitable.

There endeth the sermon!

I've copied and pasted this from another thread on a similar vein, on which I posted this:

We all know our own farms and soils best.
There is no absolute right way of doing something - there are good ways and not so good ways.

We each have TWO eyes, TWO ears (We won't mention the two hands we type with!!) and ONE mouth.
Perhaps they should be used in that exact proportion.

My suggestion is that we stick to what we know works best for each of us, Whilst we listen and look at how others solve their problems. Take on board what we hear from others and try to pick some constructive changes to our individual systems to improve them.

Doing the same thing over a over again, expecting things to improve, is never going to happen, is it?

Every day is a learning day and that includes mistakes as well as improvements.

 

[Two Tone]

Out of interest @Will7 , where abouts do you farm and what sort of soil type(s)?

 

[Philip Hedeng]

Listening to those who have spent a lot of time with these questions, it seems more and more clear that no-tillage alone is not the solution to a regenerative system, which it has to be. Soils are generally degrading at a fast rate and it has to be reversed, not only haltered. Might even be that a machine-centered system is not the right system and much more arable land has to be reintroduced to grazing livestock and a broader range of crops. Earlier post by @martian paints the bigger picture. All the monoculture we grow can probably only lead to more fragile systems and bigger risks. Look at prices of our products, we already produce all the food that is needed, now we need to do it in a better way because our planet does not seem to cope with the current system. No-till is most likely a piece of the puzzle since it globally seem to turn things for better. When I see bare soils with no vegetation I think it's kind of similar to a desert and that worries me.

 

[DrWazzock]

Soil degradation is not a new phenomenon. When Charles Dickens passed our farm he wrote that the sands blew like those of the Arabian desert.

We have made some progress.

 

[doorknob]

Vertical farming

 

[Will7]

Out of interest @Will7 , where abouts do you farm and what sort of soil type(s)?

Lincolnshire and heavy, but I would describe it as good heavy land provided the management is in place.

I also have experience farming 6" of sand over sandstone (rubbish) and Sussex Weald Clay (rubbish).

 

[mikep]

Listening to those who have spent a lot of time with these questions, it seems more and more clear that no-tillage alone is not the solution to a regenerative system, which it has to be. Soils are generally degrading at a fast rate and it has to be reversed, not only haltered. Might even be that a machine-centered system is not the right system and much more arable land has to be reintroduced to grazing livestock and a broader range of crops. Earlier post by @martian paints the bigger picture. All the monoculture we grow can probably only lead to more fragile systems and bigger risks. Look at prices of our products, we already produce all the food that is needed, now we need to do it in a better way because our planet does not seem to cope with the current system. No-till is most likely a piece of the puzzle since it globally seem to turn things for better. When I see bare soils with no vegetation I think it's kind of similar to a desert and that worries me.

And, pray tell, where do we sell the stock thus raised and for what coin?

 

[Two Tone]

Lincolnshire and heavy, but I would describe it as good heavy land provided the management is in place.

I also have experience farming 6" of sand over sandstone (rubbish) and Sussex Weald Clay (rubbish).

Your land sounds like some good land with some good heart in it and you have a management system that work for it.

That word management covers as many sins as ploughing can hide. Good management is a gut feeling of many systems as to how to farm the best way you can whilst seeing how others do it and taking their best bits to improve your own system.

I have to manage and farm far heavier Warwichire clay (they make Rugby cement with) and sand in the same average sized 13 acre fields. And everything in between from brash to ironstone. So you can imagine the challenge this produces in cultivation techniques.

I have also farmed black fenland and similar heavy gutsy land to you but in Suffolk.

I've tried many systems and techniques but I have to come up with a system that is cost effective and will work no matter if we have a wet or dry year. Hindsight is a wonderful science and sometimes we would have been better doing it a different way if only we knew what the weather was going to be the year following the autumn we planted a crop.

So my management has to be to chose a system that is the best compromises no matter what it throws at us for all those soil types.

There are ways of farming all sorts of rubbish soils. The trick is to find which way is best. Put all the rubbish and good stuff in the same field and your management needs to be a top notch compromise. Some might think it is being a muppet, but I can assure you those of us doing it do not appreciate that term when we have tried everything else and have come full circle back to they way it works best for us

 

[Will7]

@Two Tone

My land is heavier than your land, doesn't this always crop up as mitigation!

It sounds to me like you have the job sorted in extremely tough circumstances so congratulations.

I disagree with the majority of your last 2 longer posts but that is what makes farming so varied and interesting.

All the best

 

[Two Tone]

@Two Tone

My land is heavier than your land, doesn't this always crop up as mitigation!

It sounds to me like you have the job sorted in extremely tough circumstances so congratulations.

I disagree with the majority of your last 2 longer posts but that is what makes farming so varied and interesting.

All the best

@Will7, There is a lovely Fenland expression "You can't push water up hill"
The trouble is that on some heavy lands you can't get it to go down hill either!
Moisture and how we deal with it within the soil profile is the key to getting good yields.
Not only to provide the right amount of moisture for the crop, but deterring Blackgrass too.

I've seen so many really good farmers who vowed never to plough again have to return to doing so. Not just here, but over large parts of the heavy lands of East Anglia too.

No Till Direct Drilling was pioneered in the Cotswolds in the late 70's with the Bettinson DD. It worked well for a few years and for many farmers they saw for the first time 10t/ha crops. The ICI 10 tonne club was formed as a result. But even those on the free draining Cotswold brash gave it up because the soils started to slump and yields collapsed. As soon as they went back to ploughing, back the yields came.

Then came Min Till and for a time we all thought that was the answer to lowering the cost of production. Yet again, it was for a while. But it has caused so many other problems that many of us have gone back to ploughing again.

It so much depends on how mush moisture you have to deal with. Not just how to get rid of the excess, but retaining what you need too. Timing and accuracy is a good answer here. That is the challenge and that is what makes it all so interesting.

The day we can control the weather, it will all become so (too) easy!

Isn't nature wonderful? You think you got it under control, then it comes back to bite you.

All the best to you too.

 

[SilliamWhale]

I'm glad I wasn't around when people were direct drilling in the 70's

 

[Hammer]

@Will7,

No Till Direct Drilling was pioneered in the Cotswolds in the late 70's with the Bettinson DD. It worked well for a few years and for many farmers they saw for the first time 10t/ acre crops.

If a Bettinson DD led to 10t/acre crops, even for a few years, then I'm off to look in the nettles...

 

[Two Tone]

I'm glad I wasn't around when people were direct drilling in the 70's

Ooh - I dunno!

Bettinson DD drills were popular in the Cotswolds for cereals drilling for a year or three. But also used in many other parts of the country by contractors for drilling OSR, which was just beginning to become popular as a crop

Back then we had a (first) min till session thanks to the Vicon Jumbo buster or Bomford Super-flow. Producing bloody great clod boulders that you couldn't do anything with. Wild oats became an even bigger problem, so everybody went back to ploughing again after a couple of years
The Lely power harrow was only just being invented.
Then came the MF 30 drill which was brilliant. Soon to made 3 or 4 metres wide with tramliners and pre-em markers
Then came a bridge link to join the MF 30 drill to a 4 metre wide Lely power harrow and in effect the first combi was born

Things were great! Blackgrass was easily controlled with Dicurane (CTU) or Arelon, Tolken or Hytane (IPU)
Avadex sorted out the Wild Oats. Everybody bought a Nodet DP12 metre pneumatic ferts spreader to apply their Avadex
Round-up had just been invented to eliminate Couch grass.

This was a time when yields suddenly surged forwards from 2 tons/acre to 4. But IMO the main reason for this was Bayleton M & CF fungicides in conjunction with using higher doses of Nitrogen.
Will we ever see such a huge jump in yields again? I doubt it

Wheat went through the £100/ton barrier for the first time!

This was probably one of the best and time to be in Farming and we probably didn't realise it at the time. The term "Rich Farmer" was coined during this period, probably rightly so.

Co-responsibility levies, Quotas, Set-aside, IACS, SFP's, Cross compliance , BPS's and Deaf -Error were years away!