Min till bellend

Brisel

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Midlands
Aye, ph is ok, all my land is tested every 4 years and everything goes on variable rate, including lime. Aye, competition definitely helps, but as i said somewhere else here, I'm on pretty light soil, and we've had two desperately dry springs and early summers in a row, so pre em hasn't worked, the crops have been very slow to get going in the dry, add that to me not really being on top of a small meadow grass problem in the previous seasons, now it's a big problem.... Sounds like I'm just going to be better sticking to roundup when i can and hoping for a good season for pre em next year.... Even wondering about spraying a pre em onto my cover crop in the back end if there's decent moisture, just to stop the bloody stuff seeding all winter?

Thanks - more detail helps analyse the problem better. Cover crops - talk me through what you sow and when please.

A basic strategy would be pre harvest glyphosate which I suspect is normal for your part of the world. Broadcast a broad leafed cover crop into the standing crop after this so it is established better. Being careful with products and recording their use you potentially have an opportunity to use selective herbicides in the autumn. Would you consider going without a cover crop just so you can glyphosate the stubbles?

I’m afraid min till and untreated cover crops are the weak point that allow proliferation of AMG. Sit down with your agronomist and work through a strategy that suits your system and be prepared to change that system to get on top of the weeds.

Pendimethalin is also found in Crystal. Perhaps use Liberator pre em and add PDM as the DFF will also do a bit and you can view the forecast to see how much rain there is. Obviously this depends on what crop this is in front of.
 
Thanks for that. As far as the cover crop goes, it's a new thing for me to help with drainage and om in soils that are fairly newly away from the plough regime, but in all honesty we're a bit far north for a cover crop top grow to any size after spring cereals. Mustard and radish are really the only ones that grow to any useful size, and even they are nothing like what you see down south. I have been foregoing the covers in favour of winter stubbles and roundup in the worst places, and i think rotation is going to have to be a bigger thing, be able to change up the chemistry and timings then. Yeah, harvest roundup followed by broadcasting cc into the standing crop is another option to get the cc covering the ground and competing quicker, does rely on there being enough moisture around though, can be a bit hit and miss with kale and stubble turnips anyway.
 

juke

Member
Location
DURHAM
Thanks for that. As far as the cover crop goes, it's a new thing for me to help with drainage and om in soils that are fairly newly away from the plough regime, but in all honesty we're a bit far north for a cover crop top grow to any size after spring cereals. Mustard and radish are really the only ones that grow to any useful size, and even they are nothing like what you see down south. I have been foregoing the covers in favour of winter stubbles and roundup in the worst places, and i think rotation is going to have to be a bigger thing, be able to change up the chemistry and timings then. Yeah, harvest roundup followed by broadcasting cc into the standing crop is another option to get the cc covering the ground and competing quicker, does rely on there being enough moisture around though, can be a bit hit and miss with kale and stubble turnips anyway.

Nailed it there for yourself , Rotation Rotation Rotation , absloutley critical
 
Is there something available /allowable these days with ipu in ?
Not sure to be honest, i let my agronomist do the lifting on chemical applications lol
Nailed it there for yourself , Rotation Rotation Rotation , absloutley critical
Think so, the plough allowed us to get away with a lot less rotation just by throwing diesel at the problem. Nobody seems to like the straw rake brainwave much anyway lol
 

juke

Member
Location
DURHAM
Not sure to be honest, i let my agronomist do the lifting on chemical applications lol

Think so, the plough allowed us to get away with a lot less rotation just by throwing diesel at the problem. Nobody seems to like the straw rake brainwave much anyway lol

Some people love the stubble rakes, I'm sure they have there place depending on which weeds a farmer wants to chit same as a carrier style machine . It's alot easier to deal with weeds on the top , weeds that are mixed through the soil profile cause headaches for years . Less is more.

Something like Tower could help with Any combo of dff+pdm+ctu. If the pre em condtions look favourable.
 

David_A

Member
BASE UK Member
Location
Fife
Interesting problem @scottishsnake. We had fields like this early on in no/min till. Stick with pre em liberator.
We leave stubbles untouched til spring, spray off then cultivate, drill and spray quick. Our longest term no till field had lots of meadow grass first few years. Not much in it this year, only herbicide was .2 hurricane on spring oats. I'm sure soil biology improvements are having an impact... no proof though.
No till winter crops seem to have very little any at all even where no herbicides applied. Keeping some form of competition cover on the ground helps.
AMG seems to prefer areas with a shallow pan imo. It can get a hold in the tramlines in some fields. I don't think cultivation necessarily helps, save to give the crop a nutrition boost from mineralization.
 
Interesting problem @scottishsnake. We had fields like this early on in no/min till. Stick with pre em liberator.
We leave stubbles untouched til spring, spray off then cultivate, drill and spray quick. Our longest term no till field had lots of meadow grass first few years. Not much in it this year, only herbicide was .2 hurricane on spring oats. I'm sure soil biology improvements are having an impact... no proof though.
No till winter crops seem to have very little any at all even where no herbicides applied. Keeping some form of competition cover on the ground helps.
AMG seems to prefer areas with a shallow pan imo. It can get a hold in the tramlines in some fields. I don't think cultivation necessarily helps, save to give the crop a nutrition boost from mineralization.
Ha! So I'm not just imagining that the amg seems to be emanating from tramlines! Lack of competition there i suppose. Yeah, there was one field this year i did pretty much as you described and deffo got at least a fair degree of kill on it, another one was done the same except i took a leap of faith and did my first ever attempt at dd into the stubble. Had severe misgivings, as it was hard as hell and the Sabre tine was really struggling to go in... Have to say that kill on amg was goodish too, and establishment was good.... And even now the crop looks reasonable, i was sure it would hit compaction and be stunted, given the land is very heavy in places and only had is first go at min till last year, so no soil structure built up yet in theory, plus hellish combine tracks from wet harvest last year.... Did everything wrong you could say lol and the crop looks a lot better than it should ????. Guess with this min\no till the next problem will be slugs and disease build up with the stubble lying around on the top year on year?
 

Two Tone

Member
Mixed Farmer
Min TIL was the worst thing we ever tried here. Seemed brilliant at first, then Blackgrass became uncontrollable. Got it back under control by going 100% back to the plough.

I’m now confident that we can start Direct Drilling/No TIL. But I do so hope we won’t get back to having Blackgrass out of control by using it!

I’m convinced the only way to do so is by absolute minimum soil disturbane, despite advice to start off with a tine drill, I’ll be going with GD type discs. I’m fairly certain my soils are in good enough condition to do this.

One thing is for sure: I will remain flexible and will not sell my ploughs and Combi, just to be on the safe side.
But not flexible enough to risk buggering up my Blackgrass control by moving too much surface soil.
Sorry Geoff, even with your rake!
 

Flat 10

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Fen Edge
Min TIL was the worst thing we ever tried here. Seemed brilliant at first, then Blackgrass became uncontrollable. Got it back under control by going 100% back to the plough.

I’m now confident that we can start Direct Drilling/No TIL. But I do so hope we won’t get back to having Blackgrass out of control by using it!

I’m convinced the only way to do so is by absolute minimum soil disturbane, despite advice to start off with a tine drill, I’ll be going with GD type discs. I’m fairly certain my soils are in good enough condition to do this.

One thing is for sure: I will remain flexible and will not sell my ploughs and Combi, just to be on the safe side.
But not flexible enough to risk buggering up my Blackgrass control by moving too much surface soil.
Sorry Geoff, even with your rake!
You are confident on the basis of drilling 1 crop DD into your failed osr.....
Quite bullish, surely your min till problems got worse over time?
also @scottishsnake bellend seems a bit harsh, though it did get me to click on the thread.....
 

oil barron

Member
Location
Aberdeenshire
How much distance is there between the coulters in your drill? The big problem I see with a lot of the no till / strip till type drills is the massive gap between the coulters. Just leaves too much daylight in the growing crop to let AMG in. If you go back to the days of the horse and ploughing at 4” deep which is pretty much what min till is, they would sow a field in two or three different directions or broadcast and harrow to make sure good cover of crop on the ground. Of course they would also rotate in Neeps and happily spend all summer hoeing. That’s probably what Joel Salatin would do.
 
Min TIL was the worst thing we ever tried here. Seemed brilliant at first, then Blackgrass became uncontrollable. Got it back under control by going 100% back to the plough.

I’m now confident that we can start Direct Drilling/No TIL. But I do so hope we won’t get back to having Blackgrass out of control by using it!

I’m convinced the only way to do so is by absolute minimum soil disturbane, despite advice to start off with a tine drill, I’ll be going with GD type discs. I’m fairly certain my soils are in good enough condition to do this.

One thing is for sure: I will remain flexible and will not sell my ploughs and Combi, just to be on the safe side.
But not flexible enough to risk buggering up my Blackgrass control by moving too much surface soil.
Sorry Geoff, even with your rake!
I'd love a gd type drill, but way too much money for me, haven't got the acres to justify it. The other thing that put me off disc type Coulters in non plough situations is that to be truly capable of dd the machines have to be by definition heavy enough to push all those discs into the ground, then you need a big tractor to pull it because it's heavy... In a situation where compaction is best avoided. No doubt the disc and press wheel give you by far the best seed placement, but it has to be said with the Sabre tine, although the seed placement is comparatively crap unless your ground is dead level, I'm scampering along with a 4.8m machine, a 6 ton tractor that's little more than idling, not using much fuel and not marking the ground, and you see these massive trailed disc drills on behind 8 to 10 ton tractors, working 3 or 4 metres at a time and working quite hard to do it, especially on hills, at the end of the day the Sabre tine drill is a poor man's dd, but it does sow the crop, costs a lot less to buy and maintain, and you can cover a lot of acres quick with a small tractor... And it'll go in the wet where the discs block up and heavy gear starts sinking. It's all swings and roundabouts Reilly
 
How much distance is there between the coulters in your drill? The big problem I see with a lot of the no till / strip till type drills is the massive gap between the coulters. Just leaves too much daylight in the growing crop to let AMG in. If you go back to the days of the horse and ploughing at 4” deep which is pretty much what min till is, they would sow a field in two or three different directions or broadcast and harrow to make sure good cover of crop on the ground. Of course they would also rotate in Neeps and happily spend all summer hoeing. That’s probably what Joel Salatin would do.
Not that wide, 6.5 inch i think it is, closes the rows only maybe a day or two later than my neighbor over the fence with his close spacing machine. I do take the point though, keeping the sun away from the weeds is a great thing. Ha, I've got a design in my head for a broadcast idea, one day I'll maybe get round to it..
 

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