Moles

[Mark140259]

Is anyone having trouble with moles? We have been strip tillaging for 5 years and this year we have mole hills galour. Ive got some one in catching them. He has caught 17 in one field. They have ruined my pre emergence as mole hills bring up blackgrass seed. We are on medium to heavy land. Is this something i should expect when direct drilling?

 

[SimonD]

A consequence of better soil life, worms etc that they feed upon. Damn those benefits of soil improvement!

 

[Kingofgrass]

moles this winter are terrible [emoji24]

 

[DrWazzock]

They are everywhere this year, whether direct drilled or ploughed.

 

[Feldspar]

Never thought about moles and black grass, but saw this for the first time the other day.

 

[Timbo1080]

They are everywhere this year, whether direct drilled or ploughed.

Same here....moles, mice & digging badgers galore...Seems to be a good year for them on all land.

 

[Timbo1080]

Never thought about moles and black grass, but saw this for the first time the other day.
View attachment 450042

Bugger!! That gives a huge incentive to get rid of them. How clean is the rest of the field, excl. molehills? That's mad!!

 

[Feldspar]

Bugger!! That gives a huge incentive to get rid of them. How clean is the rest of the field, excl. molehills? That's mad!!

Not a field we farm, but the rest of the field is not very clean, and there's a big population in the soil, so this is probably as bad as it gets. It's still a problem though.

 

[Timbo1080]

Not a field we farm, but the rest of the field is not very clean, and there's a big population in the soil, so this is probably as bad as it gets. It's still a problem though.

Ah, I was wondering whether, whatever the cultivations were pre-drilling, the moles were showing just how much had been successfully buried. I.e. Had the rest of the field been clean, and it was only the molehills that were dirty etc......thanks.

 

[Feldspar]

Ah, I was wondering whether, whatever the cultivations were pre-drilling, the moles were showing just how much had been successfully buried. I.e. Had the rest of the field been clean, and it was only the molehills that were dirty etc......thanks.

Field was bad last year and was then ploughed. The rest of the field is relatively a lot cleaner than the mole hills (but still far from clean). Would be interesting to see whether the moles appeared after the pre-em went on (in which case it shows that the pre-em worked pretty well), or well before (in which case it shows that the plough has done quite a bit). My guess is that the mole appeared after the pre-em, but I don't know.

 

[mikep]

I'm surprised that moles are bringing up BG in a notill situation as any buried should die pretty soon. With ploughing I can see as fresh seed will be put down.
Loads here this year but soil hill clean unlike rest of field, who said something about notill giving billiard table type fields?

 

[phil]

View attachment 450028moles this winter are terrible [emoji24]

Are they following leg of grassland subsoiler?

 

[Kingofgrass]

Are they following leg of grassland subsoiler?

Yeah never seen anything like it,any where near a pond ditch there terrible

 

[phil]

Yeah never seen anything like it,any where near a pond ditch there terrible

Drop it again?

 

[Yale]

I mole ploughed a couple of field and it has taken a couple of years to be able to trap the moles that followed the plough runs as they were too deep and a job to find the runs.

Have caught 44 this winter and I didn't think we had that many.

 

[cowgirl95]

Caught 37 so far this year

 

[Manny]

I brought some traps 3 weeks ago and now I've worked out not to set them to close together chasing the same mole I've now had 19 of the little beggers. Caught 5 yesterday alone with ten traps.

 

[cowgirl95]

Well done just got number 70 yesterday bit miserable to check traps today

 

[Manny]

I don't think I have many left to catch here but after talking to a neighboring farmer today I may have a nice little cash job coming up.

Well done just got number 70 yesterday bit miserable to check traps today

How often are you checking and resetting your traps? I only manage to get to mine every 2 or 3 days. I didn't know weather they need to be there a couple of days or weather you can go every day and catch more?

 

[cowgirl95]

Everyother day is best in my opinion you might catch a few more if you check every day but you will waste a lot of time looking at undisturbed traps that could have been spent setting more