Map for Direct Drilling

alomy75

Member
you will be Wallasea. In association with Downholland if you are near any Skirt Fen land and possibly Wisbech if any silt hills. From your various posts assume your are out on the heavy near Sutton St James way or a bit beyond.
Very close! Around Crowland; lincs Cambs border runs through the farm but not quite into the black land toward Peterborough. Like you say; skirty fen
 

Hindsight

Member
Location
Lincolnshire
Very close! Around Crowland; lincs Cambs border runs through the farm but not quite into the black land toward Peterborough. Like you say; skirty fen

You are possibly on the kinder Downholland. Wallasea would be Sutton St Edmunds type land. Though it is very variable. Downholland is in effect Wallasea but with Organic Matter levels up around 8 - 10%. Wallasea tends to be around 4%. Both are Silty Clay composition.
 

tr250

Member
Location
Northants
Thanks this is a very useful article. My land would fall in class 3. Looking like the claydon will suit the ground here the best
I personally would advise against strip till ie claydon etc because it’s a one trick pony and it moves too much soil at drilling time. Personally I run a weaving gd as in your position don’t have enough land to have 2 drills. So basically you can decide how much dd you want to do and just cultivate in front of anything your un sure about. A low distance drill will have benefits of less weeds germinating after drilling even if you’ve ploughed and cultivated and had a stale seedbed prior. From what I see from the outside is the people that buy the whole drill straw rake sell all their machines and do 100% of their farm in the first year are the ones who Jack it in and go back cultivating within 3 years so feel your way in gently only doing what you can afford to loose to start with
 

alomy75

Member
You are possibly on the kinder Downholland. Wallasea would be Sutton St Edmunds type land. Though it is very variable. Downholland is in effect Wallasea but with Organic Matter levels up around 8 - 10%. Wallasea tends to be around 4%. Both are Silty Clay composition.
Oh crikey; yes we are a lot kinder than Sutton at Edmunds…had experience with that stuff; also used to farm around Gedney Hill which is similar. OM into the low teens in some fields here. If I could bale without the compaction I think I’d get away with it on this land but giving dd every chance for a start. Thanks for your help 👍
 

Hindsight

Member
Location
Lincolnshire
Oh crikey; yes we are a lot kinder than Sutton at Edmunds…had experience with that stuff; also used to farm around Gedney Hill which is similar. OM into the low teens in some fields here. If I could bale without the compaction I think I’d get away with it on this land but giving dd every chance for a start. Thanks for your help 👍

The soils of the Fens are interesting. I can only pass on what I have been told which would be if your fields have OM in low teens they are most likely Downholland, possibly in association with Chatteris series. The silt hills / roddons, if you have any are Wisbech / Agney series. Downhlland is quite a reasonable soil and the level of OM is why potatoes can be grown in what is same mineral composition as the Wallasea series.

If I recall the Wallasea series soils around the Fen edge are either degraded Downholland where over past three to couple hundred years OM level has reduced since being drained, or are younger soils, maybe about 1400 to 700 years since emerged / reclaimed from sea as the Wash filled and thus have not been under a period of peat formation nor had only a limited time to develop OM level. They are marsh soils. The marsh soils north of Skegness are all Wallasea as are the bits around Essex marshes. If memory serves me Sutton St Edmunds Wallasea's are the latter wheras around Bourne, for example, are degraded Downholland.

I had the benefit of a now well retired ADAS soil scientist explain this to me some decades ago! Best wishes.
 
Last edited:

alomy75

Member
The soils of the Fens are interesting. I can only pass on what I have been told which would be if your fields have OM in low teens they are most likely Downholland, possibly in association with Chatteris series. The silt hills / roddons, if you have any are Wisbech / Agney series. Downhlland is quite a reasonable soil and the level of OM is why potatoes can be grown in what is same mineral composition as the Wallasea series.

If I recall the Wallasea series soils around the Fen edge are either degraded Downholland where over past couple hundred years OM level has reduced since being drained, or are younger soils, maybe about 1000 to 700 years since emerged / reclaimed from sea as the Wash filled and thus have not been under a period of peat formation nor had only a limited time to develop OM level. They are marsh soils. The marsh soils north of Skegness are all Wallasea as are the bits around Essex marshes. If memory serves me Sutton St Edmunds Wallasea's are the latter wheras around Bourne, for example, are degraded Downholland.

I had the benefit of a now well retired ADAS soil scientist explain this to me some decades ago! Best wishes.
A5225C11-865D-4B0D-96E6-2CDC33D7AC30.png
Many silt hills round here. Sea level is around 18” above ground level on our house; what you’re saying is very familiar for our mineral stuff; good potato land etc. We do have some land in Crowland wash that’s bizarre stuff; adas came in grandad’s day and tried to plough the clay up to stabilise the black on top but ended up ploughing up orange seams of ochre and my old chap said that field has never been the same since. Bog oaks in it (not many) but it’s not black like Holme fen; it’s nasty stuff when it’s wet. Keep meaning to send some off for soil type
 

Hindsight

Member
Location
Lincolnshire
View attachment 1001530Many silt hills round here. Sea level is around 18” above ground level on our house; what you’re saying is very familiar for our mineral stuff; good potato land etc. We do have some land in Crowland wash that’s bizarre stuff; adas came in grandad’s day and tried to plough the clay up to stabilise the black on top but ended up ploughing up orange seams of ochre and my old chap said that field has never been the same since. Bog oaks in it (not many) but it’s not black like Holme fen; it’s nasty stuff when it’s wet. Keep meaning to send some off for soil type

Can see the silt Roddons ancient river beds on that Google image. Also on that image looks to be evidence of sea creeks. You can get different periods overlaid as parts of the current area we call the Fens since end of Glacial period has been inundated on different occasions for different reasons. As you are dragging out Bog Oaks now quite shallow I suspect the Peat was formed around 500 BC to 500AD, the last inundation when the inland Fens was fresh water marsh. The Bog Oaks I understand are not Oak but usually Yew, Alder etc.
 

Two Tone

Member
Mixed Farmer
The claydon will want rolling afterwards I would put money on it. It doesn't cover up what it has done very well at all, and truth be told the die hards would not accept it as direct drilling. It does work well though. I've even had wheat put in after maize in good autumns. Worked a treat.

You may need the odd preparatory pass with something some odd years, particularly if you want to create a stale seedbed. It's no big issue.
Interestingly, Harry Metcalfe of Harry’s Farm (YouTube fame) rolls after drilling with a Claydon.
He reckons his cereals establishment costs are a 1/4 of what they were when he used a plough based establishment technique.
But, IMO the Claydon moves far too much soil, hence needing a decent amount of horsepower to pull it and also IMO risks waking up too match Blackgrass. Especially so if any preparatory cultivations are performed.

I use a Weaving GD which I believe is the, if not one of the true DD drills that moves the least amount of soil between the coulters, therefore doesn’t disturb too much Blackgrass and uses much less fuel to pull it.
It also doesn’t require rolling after the drill, because the 22.5 degree angled discs are followed by a wheel that does the rolling in the right place, immediately behind the coulter.
Hence my own figures show an 1/8th of the fuel used compared to when using a plough based system.

So little soil between the rows is moved that I find that only 1/2 of the pre-em herbicides are necessary.
It’s just a matter of timing to get the system to work on any soil type. Which generally means drilling 2 weeks earlier in the Autumn, when soil conditions are good, and 2 weeks later in the Spring.
I’m not sure of the exact official soil types I farm here as shown in @AT Aloss shows in post 12, but probably most of them and il works on all of them if you get the timing right.
Also spreading Muck causes no problems at all and the drill will drill through it without problem.

The establishment financial cost savings are fantastic. Also the enormous time saving. Equally so the environmental benefits and CO2 savings.
If you move soil and you can smell that wonderful smell of the soil, the smell itself is actually the CO2 that your soil is releasing to the atmosphere of oxidising Organic matter. Both are bad and the last thing you want to lose!


Having held onto my Plough, Combi-drill, Rolls, various other cultivators, Floatation and Dual wheels, just in case DD didn’t work, I am now confident to sell the lot before everybody wakes up and wants to do the same!

PS, The other day, I did a back of fag-packet list of how many wins the system has shown me. It worked out at 9 wins. And I’m still trying to find the catch.
 
Last edited:
Interestingly, Harry Metcalfe of Harry’s Farm (YouTube fame) rolls after drilling with a Claydon.
He reckons his cereals establishment costs are a 1/4 of what they were when he used a plough based establishment technique.
But, IMO the Claydon moves far too much soil, hence needing a decent amount of horsepower to pull it and also IMO risks waking up too match Blackgrass. Especially so if any preparatory cultivations are performed.

I use a Weaving GD which I believe is the, if not one of the true DD drills that moves the least amount of soil between the coulters, therefore doesn’t disturb too much Blackgrass and uses much less fuel to pull it.
It also doesn’t require rolling after the drill, because the 22.5 degree angled discs are followed by a wheel that does the rolling in the right place, immediately behind the coulter.
Hence my own figures show an 1/8th of the fuel used compared to when using a plough based system.

So little soil between the rows is moved that I find that only 1/2 of the pre-em herbicides are necessary.
It’s just a matter of timing to get the system to work on any soil type. Which generally means drilling 2 weeks earlier in the Autumn, when soil conditions are good, and 2 weeks later in the Spring.
Also spreading Muck causes no problems at all and the drill will drill through it without problem.

The establishment financial cost savings are fantastic. Equally so the environmental benefits and CO2 savings.
If you move soil and you can smell that wonderful smell of the soil, the smell itself is actually the CO2 that your soil is releasing to the atmosphere of oxidising Organic matter. Both are bad and the last thing you want to lose!


Having held onto my Plough, Combi-drill, Rolls, various other cultivators, Floatation and Dual wheels, just in case DD didn’t work, I am now confident to sell the lot before everybody wakes up and wants to do the same!

I agree the claydon moves a lot of dirt- which is probably why it works so well down here as it is wet and soil movement cheats by artificially loosening soil so water can get away and not drown the crop. So it's not really a no-till drill in the conventional sense I admit but it does work very well and is definitely kinder to soil and your pocket. I suspect if you did it for long enough or had the right soil type to begin with you would probably get enough seed to soil contact and tilth generated that no rolling would be necessary.

I am not familiar with all the other drills out there these days, if they can achieve more with less disturbance and horsepower I would be all in favour. For me the jury is out on the blackgrass, down here the get out clauses are rotation and ploughing and if you lose a battle grassing it down for several years is no huge issue because there is so much livestock about. Where I saw a claydon used we have very manageable blackgrass levels, certainly you would rogue it out very readily and I could still control it with the available chemistry.
 

tr250

Member
Location
Northants
Interestingly, Harry Metcalfe of Harry’s Farm (YouTube fame) rolls after drilling with a Claydon.
He reckons his cereals establishment costs are a 1/4 of what they were when he used a plough based establishment technique.
But, IMO the Claydon moves far too much soil, hence needing a decent amount of horsepower to pull it and also IMO risks waking up too match Blackgrass. Especially so if any preparatory cultivations are performed.

I use a Weaving GD which I believe is the, if not one of the true DD drills that moves the least amount of soil between the coulters, therefore doesn’t disturb too much Blackgrass and uses much less fuel to pull it.
It also doesn’t require rolling after the drill, because the 22.5 degree angled discs are followed by a wheel that does the rolling in the right place, immediately behind the coulter.
Hence my own figures show an 1/8th of the fuel used compared to when using a plough based system.

So little soil between the rows is moved that I find that only 1/2 of the pre-em herbicides are necessary.
It’s just a matter of timing to get the system to work on any soil type. Which generally means drilling 2 weeks earlier in the Autumn, when soil conditions are good, and 2 weeks later in the Spring.
I’m not sure of the exact official soil types I farm here as shown in @AT Aloss shows in post 12, but probably most of them and il works on all of them if you get the timing right.
Also spreading Muck causes no problems at all and the drill will drill through it without problem.

The establishment financial cost savings are fantastic. Also the enormous time saving. Equally so the environmental benefits and CO2 savings.
If you move soil and you can smell that wonderful smell of the soil, the smell itself is actually the CO2 that your soil is releasing to the atmosphere of oxidising Organic matter. Both are bad and the last thing you want to lose!


Having held onto my Plough, Combi-drill, Rolls, various other cultivators, Floatation and Dual wheels, just in case DD didn’t work, I am now confident to sell the lot before everybody wakes up and wants to do the same!

PS, The other day, I did a back of fag-packet list of how many wins the system has shown me. It worked out at 9 wins. And I’m still trying to find the catch.
I’m exactly the same although I’ve had a few failures these last 2 wet autumns but we’ve also had cultivated ground fail. It is generally working very well for us but I’m still trying to find the catch as you say and can’t bring myself to part with the plough/ power harrow that sits in the shed
 

Two Tone

Member
Mixed Farmer
I agree the claydon moves a lot of dirt- which is probably why it works so well down here as it is wet and soil movement cheats by artificially loosening soil so water can get away and not drown the crop. So it's not really a no-till drill in the conventional sense I admit but it does work very well and is definitely kinder to soil and your pocket. I suspect if you did it for long enough or had the right soil type to begin with you would probably get enough seed to soil contact and tilth generated that no rolling would be necessary.

I am not familiar with all the other drills out there these days, if they can achieve more with less disturbance and horsepower I would be all in favour. For me the jury is out on the blackgrass, down here the get out clauses are rotation and ploughing and if you lose a battle grassing it down for several years is no huge issue because there is so much livestock about. Where I saw a claydon used we have very manageable blackgrass levels, certainly you would rogue it out very readily and I could still control it with the available chemistry.
I can see where you are coming from. However….

If you choose a good year to start DDing and/or soils are in good condition, such as soon after harvesting the previous crop or growing a cover crop in between crops, not disturbing soil or disturbing it as little as possible will also provide enough drainage on what would become wetter soils on the late Autumn and Winter.

The previous decaying crop roots and the earthworms you didn’t kill will provide your drainage and the longer you have been doing DD, the Organic Matter builds up to both hold onto moisture in a drought and drain it away in times of excess water. The soils become more alive rather than getting deader and deader, the more times you Power-Harrow it, therefore building up ever increasing problems of needing more fertilisers and sprays to achieve yield.

Because you didn’t disturb the soil, you no longer need floatation wheels to stop ruts in the tramlines.
Some of my tramlines are now in their 4th crop of use without any ruts whatsoever!
The only thing that you have to get used to, is looking at what might look as a stubble field of the previous crop until the following Spring, because it is taller than the crop you are now growing.


We are all on the cusp of having to yet again learn a completely new system of support as BPS is lost to be replaced by a revolutionary system of ELMs and SFI’s, which are frightening to comprehend, especially as they are not real farming.
However, here is a system that is real farming, totally logical when you think about it and understand it, which is nothing like as frightening and saves a busting shed load of money!
On top of which will earn points to be rewarded by ELMs and SFI cash.
 
I can see where you are coming from. However….

If you choose a good year to start DDing and/or soils are in good condition, such as soon after harvesting the previous crop or growing a cover crop in between crops, not disturbing soil or disturbing it as little as possible will also provide enough drainage on what would become wetter soils on the late Autumn and Winter.

The previous decaying crop roots and the earthworms you didn’t kill will provide your drainage and the longer you have been doing DD, the Organic Matter builds up to both hold onto moisture in a drought and drain it away in times of excess water. The soils become more alive rather than getting deader and deader, the more times you Power-Harrow it, therefore building up ever increasing problems of needing more fertilisers and sprays to achieve yield.

Because you didn’t disturb the soil, you no longer need floatation wheels to stop ruts in the tramlines.
Some of my tramlines are now in their 4th crop of use without any ruts whatsoever!
The only thing that you have to get used to, is looking at what might look as a stubble field of the previous crop until the following Spring, because it is taller than the crop you are now growing.


We are all on the cusp of having to yet again learn a completely new system of support as BPS is lost to be replaced by a revolutionary system of ELMs and SFI’s, which are frightening to comprehend, especially as they are not real farming.
However, here is a system that is real farming, totally logical when you think about it and understand it, which is nothing like as frightening and saves a busting shed load of money!
On top of which will earn points to be rewarded by ELMs and SFI.

Oh I agree with this. If you do it for long enough, the top layer of soil becomes a different thing, it improves year on year and as you say, retains it's load bearing capacity so you leave the tramlines in the same place. The only thing that undoes all this is wet years when you try spraying or doing something when it is too wet. In drier conditions, it becomes a doddle and actually works better because you retain more moisture.
 

Adeptandy

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
PE15
It’s interesting here, I’m split between 2 farms, the one I’ve had 20 years is deteriorating, I’ve gone from plough- pharrow to patriot -disc -Vaddy, and comparing that to the home farm that 3 years ago came out of hls grass the difference is tangible. The home farm had just started to produce after taking 2 crops to come back from low inputs compared to the other farm that’s really suffered with the higher rainfall and yields have dropped off a cliff in comparison.
Now the GD and the DD enter year 2 😬
 

Two Tone

Member
Mixed Farmer
Oh I agree with this. If you do it for long enough, the top layer of soil becomes a different thing, it improves year on year and as you say, retains it's load bearing capacity so you leave the tramlines in the same place. The only thing that undoes all this is wet years when you try spraying or doing something when it is too wet. In drier conditions, it becomes a doddle and actually works better because you retain more moisture.
I think that last 2 years have been pretty testing with regard the wet. But believe me, because you didn’t disturb soil, even in the early years, water penetration to below ploughing depth is so much better because you didn’t create a sponge, that you can now spray so much sooner.
But, chances are that you won’t need to spray it so much or often anyway.

A good companion might be imagining that your arable fields are now like they were planted with a permanent pasture which you can walk or drive on, so much better than a ploughed or cultivated field.
Or even compare your arable field to your lawn.

This is why we call it Regenerative Agriculture.
 

Two Tone

Member
Mixed Farmer
Some 40 odd years ago, there was a rather famous Farm Machinery lecturer from Harper who said that there are all sorts of cultivators in the world, but that basically they all do the same thing.

He also said that most of them are used to excess, because when farmers are feeling down or miserable, there is nothing like getting out there and doing some cultivating. He called this RECREATIONAL CULTIVATION!

As regards RECREATIONAL, he was referring to a recreational pastime which makes farmers feel better because they think they are doing something positive.

Where’s in reality, it just turns out that 40 years later, with regards the soil, I have learned that RE - CREATIONAL (as in creating something positive) is absolutely the last thing that cultivating soils is doing. In fact, completely the opposite!

No where in nature does soil self cultivate. As soon as we do it, it looses Carbon and degenerates.

Therefore NOT CULTIVATING the soil is the true RE - CREATIONAL Cultivation. Because it REGENERATES it.



There are a lot of folks on TFF who helped teach me this, such as @Clive , @Warnesworth and his colleague Steve Townsend and many other TFF DD’ers. You know who you all are.

Also in reality you absolutely cannot teach anybody anything, unless they absolutely want to learn!



I was at a conference on Thursday, where a farmer pointed out that where veg and root crops are grown, the soil must continue to be ploughed or deep cultivated.
However, in reality, when you have Regenerated the soil and its structure has improved enough, the only reason for ploughing is to create a soil medium to allow harvesting machinery to work.
Just as we have seen a massive improvement in what DD drills can now do, root and veg machinery manufacturers need to catch up in creating harvesters that will work in soils that don’t need ploughing ridges or beds to be created.
For instance planting such crops under a bed of straw, compost mulch or composted FYM. All of which could add to the Organic matter after harvest.
There is a lot more to learn yet.
 

ajd132

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Suffolk
I personally would advise against strip till ie claydon etc because it’s a one trick pony and it moves too much soil at drilling time. Personally I run a weaving gd as in your position don’t have enough land to have 2 drills. So basically you can decide how much dd you want to do and just cultivate in front of anything your un sure about. A low distance drill will have benefits of less weeds germinating after drilling even if you’ve ploughed and cultivated and had a stale seedbed prior. From what I see from the outside is the people that buy the whole drill straw rake sell all their machines and do 100% of their farm in the first year are the ones who Jack it in and go back cultivating within 3 years so feel your way in gently only doing what you can afford to loose to start with
Funny you say this, there is a thread running on a drilling Facebook group of someone who has sold his 3 year old Mzuri, straw rake and special ld subsoilet and going back to top down and vaderstadt. Saying the land is now compacted and subsoiling doesn’t work, wet areas appearing.
Obviously loads of comments ‘direct drilling doesn’t work’.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 75 43.6%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 61 35.5%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 27 15.7%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.7%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.7%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 3 1.7%

Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

  • 1,284
  • 1
As reported in Independent


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

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
Top