New direct drillers

[Ladybird]

Thought it would be a good idea to get a bit of a thread going regarding new DD's hear about problems they have found with the new system, with this cold, wet spring!!! Have you been able to patient and wait for better conditions? Have some fudged some crops in and regretted they waited for better conditions. Be great to see some pictures of emerging crops too, both good and bad.

I'll start it off as I'm running a 750A for the first season, not so much DD resulted problem, however I have managed to put a few new Bus stops in my emerging Spring Beans!!!!

 

[Will7]

Residue management is the problem. How do you get the chopped straw from a large cereal crop to decompose in time for Spring drilling to allow the soil to dry?? Wet cold soils are the result with dreadful drilling conditions. The answer thrown back at me is baling, but I would cultivate before I baled.

I am consistently told you can direct drill on heavy land, which you can but I feel there is a distinction to be made between high potential heavy land, and low potential heavy land; the difference being huge in my opinion and is something not appreciated by light land farmers at times!

 

[willy]

I think maybe it's a little bit of jumping in feet first without realising the down sides that no till has ( it all seems very feasible on a hot dry August day) I personally found too much straw to be the Bain of my life on heavy cold land, so now I bale heavy with land wheat straw and chop all other crops. But it Is a lesson you learn as you go along and each to their own.

As for cover crops, I graze it all with sheep and struggle to see any benefit from having loads of green mass in the spring that is shading the soil from drying....but I am a simple dd not a no till guru,

 

[RTK Farmer]

Residue management is key I've found, certainly in the early days as I'm told that as worm numbers increase the problem should be less, we'll see!
Ref bus stops, me too. I'm running on a small tractor with lower ultimate oil flow than larger ones and have blamed slow coulter lowering down to this (as fan running on 33lts/min too). I've been told on my ISO drill to have seed roller switching done by spool switch not seed wheel, this is fine except I can't get the drill to recognise a speed input from the tractor so until the seed wheel gives the brain a km/hr figure I still get no seed. I also think seed rotor rpm response is slow compared to other drills I've used.

 

[mikep]

I have been thinking of how best to deal with thick straw on heavy land in the spring. The problem seems to be a mat that had been pummeled all winter and is stuck to the surface keeping in water and staying soft underneath.
This year I burn off the weeds and after a couple of weeks gave the fields a very light scuffle just to move the straw off the soil. This allowed the wind under and crisped it up. When drilling the straw just broke up under the discs with no bulldozing or pinning and the soil was dry.
The fields I did were ready earlier than those I left even though there was less straw on the unmoved ones.

 

[Brisel]

Bus stops? What are they? Skylark plots?

Going back to straw management, what are DDer's thoughts on a more comprehensive PGR programme to really reduce the amount of straw? Just trying to mitigate the problem rather than manage it afterwards. What about stubble length? I'm interested to hear from Claydon users like @willy on this as there are lots of conflicting views, especially with tine drills.

 

[Tractor Boy]

I'm running a 750 for the first time on heavy land this spring. Patience.......Christ how much do you need? I still haven't put hardly anything in. Soil has a 2 mm dry crust with wet clay that just slots underneath, that guttlers can't close. I have some stubble baled, some stubble with chopped straw and some cc sprayed off Feb. No difference between them.
As for trash management, it does seem by spring the trash has brittles up to deal with it but I'm not sure about the issue of 2 nd wheat into chopped straw as the field I had done like this as a demo in Sept has areas of bad hair pinning and possible toxic chopped straw effect.

 

[Tractor Boy]

Bus stops? What are they? Skylark plots?

Going back to straw management, what are DDer's thoughts on a more comprehensive PGR programme to really reduce the amount of straw? Just trying to mitigate the problem rather than manage it afterwards. What about stubble length? I'm interested to hear from Claydon users like @willy on this as there are lots of conflicting views, especially with tine drills.

Wrt Claydon drilling, I have used a a V drill for years and needed the stubble as short and well chopped as possible. I know the hybrid has far better clearance but suspect it still best to cut short. It now seems with my 750 possibly the opposite would be best.

 

[shakerator]

Residue management is the problem. How do you get the chopped straw from a large cereal crop to decompose in time for Spring drilling to allow the soil to dry??

stop fungicide use

 

[Feldspar]

Bus stops? What are they? Skylark plots?

Going back to straw management, what are DDer's thoughts on a more comprehensive PGR programme to really reduce the amount of straw? Just trying to mitigate the problem rather than manage it afterwards. What about stubble length? I'm interested to hear from Claydon users like @willy on this as there are lots of conflicting views, especially with tine drills.

Tried leaving the stubble long to aid combine output this season which does not agree with the Claydon. You need it shorter rather than longer. Mzuri is better in this respect but still prefers it shorter.

 

[Feldspar]

I'm running a 750 for the first time on heavy land this spring. Patience.......Christ how much do you need? I still haven't put hardly anything in. Soil has a 2 mm dry crust with wet clay that just slots underneath, that guttlers can't close. I have some stubble baled, some stubble with chopped straw and some cc sprayed off Feb. No difference between them.
As for trash management, it does seem by spring the trash has brittles up to deal with it but I'm not sure about the issue of 2 nd wheat into chopped straw as the field I had done like this as a demo in Sept has areas of bad hair pinning and possible toxic chopped straw effect.

My feeling is that you might be waiting a long time to get the ideal conditions this spring. What worries me is that where some of our soils were beginning to dry, they were not drying into a more hospitable state. They seemed to go from sticky wet to hard concrete. That said, we've got a lot of drilling that we've just done which is pretty rough and I'm not that optimistic about it. A little bit of soil movement in the autumn to give a loose inch or two on the top will be what we're going to try next autumn.

 

[Andrew K]

I think you need it short if drilling relatively soon after with a tine , but long if drilling winter or spring with a disc.

 

[Andrew K]

My feeling is that you might be waiting a long time to get the ideal conditions this spring. What worries me is that where some of our soils were beginning to dry, they were not drying into a more hospitable state. They seemed to go from sticky wet to hard concrete. That said, we've got a lot of drilling that we've just done which is pretty rough and I'm not that optimistic about it. A little bit of soil movement in the autumn to give a loose inch or two on the top will be what we're going to try next autumn.

James,
Just wondered if you feel that slotting seed in with a disc is/has been better than forcing seed into cheese with a tine this spring?
I have been promised a demo of the Weaving GD later on this spring, [ Borage into CC stubble.]

 

[Feldspar]

James,
Just wondered if you feel that slotting seed in with a disc is/has been better than forcing seed into cheese with a tine this spring?
I have been promised a demo of the Weaving GD later on this spring, [ Borage into CC stubble.]

In the end except for the brief Weaving GD demo we haven't ended up using a disc drill. We were possibly going to have some contract drilling done with a 750a, but in the end circumstances and weather did not permit.

We're just on the last field at the moment with the Claydon. Some fields we've maschioed and rolled, and they look alright, but there are a fair few which won't get rolled and are pretty wet and rough. Even after the maschcios the finish is not amazing. We will need some kind weather (i.e. a reasonable amount of rain and some warmer temperatures) to get a reasonable crop I feel. If we don't get much rain this week and it suddenly turns dry and hot after that, those fields will do pretty badly I think, especially given we're later in the season.

I do wonder even if the disc drill just left open slot whether that would be easier to deal with. I spoke to Banana Bar and he had this effect but had Cultipressed afterwards and was quite happy with the result. The one advantage of the higher disturbance drills is that they do open the soil up to allow more of it to dry.

I still think though on our heaviest bits, if we're going to direct drill them in the spring, they need some sort of shallow movement in the autumn - this I think would work well in conjunction with a disc drill.

 

[willy]

i find stubble length not to be an issue with the claydon, especially as we drill osr into wheat stubble with 3inch spoon. but even our 2nd wheat are ok, but i do like to drill in september in good conditions, and then in the spring if needed.

but by far the biggest probs i found when chopping heavy wheat straw was the mega slug problems afterwards. the problem i have is i am spread thinly with regards to tractors and men especially runnig 1500 sheep aswell. and so i need to keep things very simple. i think if you are after perfection, you will always fail somtimes as conditions are always different 1 year to the next, also time spent buggering about is normally valuable time when conditions are right.

 

[SilliamWhale]

I'm running a 750 for the first time on heavy land this spring. Patience.......Christ how much do you need? I still haven't put hardly anything in. Soil has a 2 mm dry crust with wet clay that just slots underneath, that guttlers can't close. I have some stubble baled, some stubble with chopped straw and some cc sprayed off Feb. No difference between them.
As for trash management, it does seem by spring the trash has brittles up to deal with it but I'm not sure about the issue of 2 nd wheat into chopped straw as the field I had done like this as a demo in Sept has areas of bad hair pinning and possible toxic chopped straw effect.

If going for second cereal then you either bale, lightly cultivate or accept this is going to be your most difficult scenario which may not work at times

 

[Pedders]

If going for second cereal then you either bale, lightly cultivate or accept this is going to be your most difficult scenario which may not work at times

or all three !!

 

[SilliamWhale]

or all three !!

Nah you wouldnt feel so warm and fuzzy them

 

[Tractor Boy]

If going for second cereal then you either bale, lightly cultivate or accept this is going to be your most difficult scenario which may not work at times

I have a straw rake but nothing else very suitable for light cultivation. If I cut the stubble longer, is it best not to rake it? Just wondering if the rake will knock the long stubble over and cause even more problems for the drill.

 

[Tractor Boy]

In the end except for the brief Weaving GD demo we haven't ended up using a disc drill. We were possibly going to have some contract drilling done with a 750a, but in the end circumstances and weather did not permit.

We're just on the last field at the moment with the Claydon. Some fields we've maschioed and rolled, and they look alright, but there are a fair few which won't get rolled and are pretty wet and rough. Even after the maschcios the finish is not amazing. We will need some kind weather (i.e. a reasonable amount of rain and some warmer temperatures) to get a reasonable crop I feel. If we don't get much rain this week and it suddenly turns dry and hot after that, those fields will do pretty badly I think, especially given we're later in the season.

I do wonder even if the disc drill just left open slot whether that would be easier to deal with. I spoke to Banana Bar and he had this effect but had Cultipressed afterwards and was quite happy with the result. The one advantage of the higher disturbance drills is that they do open the soil up to allow more of it to dry.

I still think though on our heaviest bits, if we're going to direct drill them in the spring, they need some sort of shallow movement in the autumn - this I think would work well in conjunction with a disc drill.

Interesting about cultipressing afterwards to close some slots. This crossed my mind as I would rather do that than maschio. Trouble is with either I am worried that the reason the slot is open is because the soil is tender and wet and the weight will just run it down hard.