Large scale No Till

[ajd132]

we often say no till needs more management and is hard to get right on bigger units. Do people think it's possible on big units like 3000ha+ in the U.K?
I think it probably is with good staff and making use of tech such as drones, remote sensors going foward etc.

 

[Farmer Roy]

Why wouldn't it be ?

Some people in Australia & North America manage many 10's of thousands of ha zero till in a variety of climates & Cropping situations . . .

 

[Alfie]

It should be easier!! Less staff, less machinery, more consistent soil texture as it's not "too dry" or "too wet"! If you farming in a big way buy two big no-till drills. There's a few guys in U.K. doing 3000ac+ with one no-till drill, one sprayer & one combine. It's a easily scaleable model imho.

 

[ajd132]

I agree. Is there anyone doing it on really big scale? 3000 acres would be easy to implement but how about someone more like 10,000 acres with multiple landlords, customers, contract farming etc etc. Do you think a company like sentry or velcourt would have the ability to roll it out wholesale or are they fairly rigid?

 

[Alfie]

It's all about attitude, mindset and management! Rotation plays a huge part but that can help with no-till too. Lots of big farms with 2 big tractors currently with one cultivating & one drilling. Sell the cultivator and buy second drill?! Not sure who biggest UK no-till farmer is. Most really big US & Canadian farming set-ups are one pass seeding!

 

[Hard Graft]

if i am corect i think @Clive would be farming on this scale

 

[Clive]

if i am corect i think @Clive would be farming on this scale

Not at that scale yet !

I don’t see why it’s not possible though if well managed - Farm in multiples of 2-3000ac kit and labour wise, ie 2 men x2 200jp tractors, 1x drill 1x trailed sprayer and 1 combine

Each team able to help the other team as required

 

[Brisel]

I agree. Is there anyone doing it on really big scale? 3000 acres would be easy to implement but how about someone more like 10,000 acres with multiple landlords, customers, contract farming etc etc. Do you think a company like sentry or velcourt would have the ability to roll it out wholesale or are they fairly rigid?

Go see what Beeswax are doing.

Ok, they are still moving soil but they decided to drill all their wheat at the end of October where blackgrass was an issue & hired in whetever they needed to make that happen. It's perfectly doable, you just need to think bigger.

24 hour operation would be a start of getting more out oof the gear when needed.

 

[Clive]

I agree. Is there anyone doing it on really big scale? 3000 acres would be easy to implement but how about someone more like 10,000 acres with multiple landlords, customers, contract farming etc etc. Do you think a company like sentry or velcourt would have the ability to roll it out wholesale or are they fairly rigid?

If you can do 3 efficiently you can do 6,9,12,18 etc

The hard bit / inefficient silly bit is doing 4 !

 

[Clive]

Go see what Beeswax are doing.

Ok, they are still moving soil but they decided to drill all their wheat at the end of October where blackgrass was an issue & hired in whetever they needed to make that happen. It's perfectly doable, you just need to think bigger.

24 hour operation would be a start of getting more out oof the gear when needed.

Dyson must be working on robots surely?

He’s far to smart to think quadtrac farming is really a good idea or in any way sustainable I’m sure

 

[opininionated]

If you can do 3 efficiently you can do 6,9,12,18 etc

The hard bit / inefficient silly bit is doing 4 !

I would say the hard bit is finding the available land in the vicinity to scale from 3 to 6 in one go, some bit of silliness will be inevitable along the way...

 

[An Gof]

I would say the hard bit is finding the available land in the vicinity to scale from 3 to 6 in one go, some bit of silliness will be inevitable along the way...

... and a big demand for working capital

 

[Clive]

... and a big demand for working capital

the capital demand / ha for a zero-till system is a lot lower than a more conventional system (50% of ) and has been key factor in ability to take on extra acres here

 

[Clive]

I would say the hard bit is finding the available land in the vicinity to scale from 3 to 6 in one go, some bit of silliness will be inevitable along the way...

yep - that's the challenging bit ! but there are (thankfully) some very switched on landowners who don't want the fool willing to work for nothing with his big, heavy, high hp tractor and mining operation wrecking their valuable land asset !

 

[ajd132]

If you can do 3 efficiently you can do 6,9,12,18 etc

The hard bit / inefficient silly bit is doing 4 !

Totally agree although in this area I would push the block size up to 3500 for one combine.

 

[Feldspar]

If you can do 3 efficiently you can do 6,9,12,18 etc

The hard bit / inefficient silly bit is doing 4 !

Depends how you manage it. If you have a mixture of soil types, cropping and maybe some environmental stuff, you can do any acreage you like. If @ajd132 gets the stripper header working, then you could happily put 4000ac through one combine.

 

[Clive]

Totally agree although in this area I would push the block size up to 3500 for one combine.

yes combine capacity is the determining limit - around here 2500- 3000 is as much as is sensible for one machine especially if you grow 100% milling wheats - in an are like yours can see why 1000 ac more is no harder to achieve with the same machine

 

[Clive]

Depends how you manage it. If you have a mixture of soil types, cropping and maybe some environmental stuff, you can do any acreage you like. If @ajd132 gets the stripper header working, then you could happily put 4000ac through one combine.

not around here you can't - there is no way a single combine could do 4000ac - they all have an output of 0 t/hr when on the road or dropping headers off and we do a LOT more of that around here with small field size and fragmented land blocks etc

I didn't think anyone locally is doing more than 2500-3000 ac per combine even though there are many well set up and well organised farmers around here

I also don't think being on the absolute limit of machine capacity is wise with zero-till - the system is efficient enough to be able to stand a bit of excess capacity and as timeliness is so much more important for long term success I think building that in is wise / prudent

 

[Feldspar]

not around here you can't - there is no way a single combine could do 4000ac - they all have an output of 0 t/hr when on the road or dropping headers off and we do a LOT more of that around here with small field size and fragmented land blocks etc

I didn't think anyone locally is doing more than 2500-3000 ac per combine even though there are many well set up and well organised farmers around here

I wasn't necessarily saying 4000ac of combinables, more like any area of land. If you're growing sugar beet on some acreage, have a decent area of environmental options including fallow, then you can tailor your combinable area to whatever you like. I think we need to get away from thinking that the only farming solution is to crop every acre of every field.

 

[ajd132]

yes combine capacity is the determining limit - around here 2500- 3000 is as much as is sensible for one machine especially if you grow 100% milling wheats - in an are like yours can see why 1000 ac more is no harder to achieve with the same machine

We have put 4000 through a 600 on 35ftnheader some years in the past but other years had to get help in. Farming less now due to that farm being sold so its more manageable but could easily do more now with 780and 12m.