Oh my lord

[beardface]

@Niels regards straw harrow yes the frame. Ones I saw working seemed to be more heavily built and put more pressure on the tines, easily worked down to 2" with a good mix of weed/ volunteer seeds with soil and even trash distribution. Greened up well then sprayed off and banged it in with John Deere drill, very even germination on fields I saw. Also a good tool to dry out surface pre sowing if a bit wet too.
@dug with you on the soil pH front, I'm of the view that fields should be treated on a soil zone basis with each zone given what it needs to achieve optimum yield, a bit like EID in breeding ewes you treat each ewe independently produce a flock of similar characteristics and yield.

 

[martian]

But what do some of you people think of variability of soil pH, it's effect on crop production, and the need to try variable lime application?

Most people only treat the acid areas, chalk is bulky stuff. @Cab-over Pete might have a view. Must admit, since no-tilling, haven't had to do any. Soils seem to be balancing themselves quite well...

 

[Cab-over Pete]

Well, obviously, I'm a fan of using lime and getting your pH correct across the whole farm. We have been applying lime on a kind of manual vra for many years, such is the variability of soils in and around Warwickshire.

@martion , I would expect that you would need to use lime again in the future. I am not surprised you seem to need none now and some of my customers have found that occasionally too, but they have also found areas needing lime that previously needed none or very little.

If you have the vra information for P+K then it's easy to do the lime too and daft not to.

 

[Niels]

@Niels regards straw harrow yes the frame. Ones I saw working seemed to be more heavily built and put more pressure on the tines, easily worked down to 2" with a good mix of weed/ volunteer seeds with soil and even trash distribution. Greened up well then sprayed off and banged it in with John Deere drill, very even germination on fields I saw. Also a good tool to dry out surface pre sowing if a bit wet too.
@dug with you on the soil pH front, I'm of the view that fields should be treated on a soil zone basis with each zone given what it needs to achieve optimum yield, a bit like EID in breeding ewes you treat each ewe independently produce a flock of similar characteristics and yield.

Ok, I see. I have successfully used the Claydon straw harrow as well for a small pre-cultivation to let the land dry out and also after drilling. Some weight is good especially in dry conditions. With the 7.5m machine the frame is heavy so this is not really an issue but it can be with a smaller 3m machine.

Ref. the VRA of lime. This is now done for the second or third year successfully in Holland. Fields get scanned using a Veris Scanner which can accurately map the pH level. Most new spreaders can be converted to applying variable rate. A good friend of mine has just bought a Güstrower (Ryetec) single axle universal spreader for VRA application of lime and chicken manure.

 

[York]

JD on tractors sales & No Till:
they have had in the 90's even a special marketing group within JD western EU organisation on tillage & planting. Did also a market review on tractor sales. When NT would be adopted in EU the tractor sales will be down to 30%.
JD EU organisation: there is a dividing line between the 2 JD sales organisation. One, which is based in Switzerland, is covering Spain and former Eastern block & also Eastern EU, the other, which is based in Mannheim is covering the old pre 90 EU. And the Mannheim JD is responsible for Agritechnica. so with the pressure for Russian visitors they opened up for JD 750 drill on display at Agritechnica.
Precision Farming:
as I have sold the 1st multiple bin VRT spreader in the EU in '93 for Terra Gator I can say: "Been there, done it, got the T-shirt". Have left the PF market in 98 after taking part in the PF world congress in St Paul, MN with more questions coming back than found answers. As long as the goal for PF is not to make the poor zones better, finding out why they are poor, as long this is basically is it will not pay.
As the variation, especially in the glazier made soils of northern Europe, are there, even a blind man can see the, I was looking for a solution and in this search I found Neal Kinsey and since then, 2001, I'm working with this system. The result is that we are archiving very good & consistent yield increases not so much in making the good better but to solve the low yielding areas and get them almost to a level of the good zones.
For this PF is a good tool to define zones & find them.
York-Th.

 

[dug]

JD on tractors sales & No Till:
they have had in the 90's even a special marketing group within JD western EU organisation on tillage & planting. Did also a market review on tractor sales. When NT would be adopted in EU the tractor sales will be down to 30%.
JD EU organisation: there is a dividing line between the 2 JD sales organisation. One, which is based in Switzerland, is covering Spain and former Eastern block & also Eastern EU, the other, which is based in Mannheim is covering the old pre 90 EU. And the Mannheim JD is responsible for Agritechnica. so with the pressure for Russian visitors they opened up for JD 750 drill on display at Agritechnica.
Precision Farming:
as I have sold the 1st multiple bin VRT spreader in the EU in '93 for Terra Gator I can say: Been there, done it, got the T-shirt. Have left the PF market in 98 after taking part in the PF world congress in St Paul, MN with more questions comming back than found answers. As long as the goal for PF is not to make the poor zones better, finding out why they are poor, as long this is basicaly a not going to pay.

York, are you saying in your last sentence here that the main goal of PF should be to try to improve the poor spots...... It is my understanding that some reasons for poor yield can be fixed with vra, and others can never be be changed, and these are the spots that should actually have there inputs cut back.

It is up to us to determine which it is , and whether to try to rectify it or not.

 

[York]

York, are you saying in your last sentence here that the main goal of PF should be to try to improve the poor spots...... It is my understanding that some reasons for poor yield can be fixed with vra, and others can never be be changed, and these are the spots that should actually have there inputs cut back.
It is up to us to determine which it is , and whether to try to rectify it or not.

The point is the tools in normal farming are used to identify the reason's of the poor zones are not adequate. OK, if the zone is poor because of drainage, flooding and sort of reasons of this kind the solving is not in nutrition. there may be other scenario which are also not including nutrition, like areas where you always have the wild geese or pigeons coming to harvest the winter crop..
Other it's nutrition of the soil which is rely the problem. Once you get this right you will see drastic yield increases in a foreseeable time frame. This is my observation and backed by many reports by farmers which follow this approach.
the point is pH will not be enough to tell you which Cation is causing the problem be it too much of one = too little of another etc.. A good read for this is "Hands on Agronomy" by Neal Kinsey. We see good responses as the 1st printing will be sold out. wonder if that number of books in English where sold in GB as we have sold the German one in the German speaking world.
York-Th.

 

[dug]

The point is the tools in normal farming are used to identify the reason's of the poor zones are not adequate. OK, if the zone is poor because of drainage, flooding and sort of reasons of this kind the solving is not in nutrition. there may be other scenario which are also not including nutrition, like areas where you always have the wild geese or pigeons coming to harvest the winter crop..
Other it's nutrition of the soil which is rely the problem. Once you get this right you will see drastic yield increases in a foreseeable time frame. This is my observation and backed by many reports by farmers which follow this approach.
the point is pH will not be enough to tell you which Cation is causing the problem be it too much of one = too little of another etc.. A good read for this is "Hands on Agronomy" by Neal Kinsey. We see good responses as the 1st printing will be sold out. wonder if that number of books in English where sold in GB as we have sold the German one in the German speaking world.
York-Th.

Of course the range of yield limiting factors you speak of goes without saying ..... Often they have nothing to do with nutrition so obviously vra will not improve them . But if an area of a field is poor yielding due to reasons that we can not reasonably fix then vra still has a place because inputs can be reduced for two reasons;1) often poor yielding sites can be higher fertility as less yield has been taken off over a number of years meaning fert application has been in excess, 2) less fert is going to be required going forward.

You mentioned the tools of normal farming are not adequate.... Why is that, we have a brain that is better than any computer model at this stage. We need to put all the known factors together and come up with a plan of attack.

With regard to ratios theory, obviously you are a strong advocate of it. To be honest it is not something we have been taught much about in the main stream in NZ, I have been starting to look into it a little on my soil tests and asking questions. We have a well respected fertiliser industry 'watchdog ' in NZ, Doug Edmeades who cuts through a lot of the crap with regard to soil fertility an fertiliser, and he does not subscribe to ratios...... Not trying to wind you up, but trying to work out if there is anything to offer us here.

 

[dug]

JD on tractors sales & No Till:
they have had in the 90's even a special marketing group within JD western EU organisation on tillage & planting. Did also a market review on tractor sales. When NT would be adopted in EU the tractor sales will be down to 30%.
JD EU organisation: there is a dividing line between the 2 JD sales organisation. One, which is based in Switzerland, is covering Spain and former Eastern block & also Eastern EU, the other, which is based in Mannheim is covering the old pre 90 EU. And the Mannheim JD is responsible for Agritechnica. so with the pressure for Russian visitors they opened up for JD 750 drill on display at Agritechnica.
Precision Farming:
as I have sold the 1st multiple bin VRT spreader in the EU in '93 for Terra Gator I can say: "Been there, done it, got the T-shirt". Have left the PF market in 98 after taking part in the PF world congress in St Paul, MN with more questions coming back than found answers. As long as the goal for PF is not to make the poor zones better, finding out why they are poor, as long this is basically is it will not pay.
As the variation, especially in the glazier made soils of northern Europe, are there, even a blind man can see the, I was looking for a solution and in this search I found Neal Kinsey and since then, 2001, I'm working with this system. The result is that we are archiving very good & consistent yield increases not so much in making the good better but to solve the low yielding areas and get them almost to a level of the good zones.
For this PF is a good tool to define zones & find them.
York-Th.

Ok I just reread this post and I see you added to it 20 mins later. I guess the extent of our current knowledge can always be up for debate..... I mean 'we don't know what we don't know'.... So maybe what we now think is a poor yielding spot due to factors we cannot change, might indeed turn out to be fixable as our knowledge improves.

If you are making good gains on your glacial soils then you must be on the right track.

 

[Clive]

with regard VRA of anything based on soil samples (P,K Ph etc) it's all rubbish IMO - the pretty contour maps are gross oversimplification, the indices do not look like those pretty coloured contours that have been guessed by a mathematical equation etc. there are far better ways to improve availability of base nutrient and Ph than expensive products in bags. I was doing it 15 years ago and it really was a waste of time and money IMO. I have the ability to do it today without costs and don't bother

VRA N I give the benefit of the doubt - at least need is being modeled on real time data, I was doing it 10 years ago with N sensor and more recently trails with satellite image - it does seem to have a positive response some years from my own experience, the agronomy models are getting better all the time, I'm not totally sold on it however, its overpriced IMO for a very simple process and I still feel there are certain flaws / assumptions to the technique like basing N need when your not actually measuring the N content or availability etc ?

VRA seed - I have the ability without cost to do it but really don't see much point, its being done because it can be vs any sound agronomic argument I have seens ? no one knows what the right seed rate is as a blanket rate until 10 months after after drilling so how futile is the idea of changing it +/- 10kgs here and there really ?

Yield mapping - I find useful, it's cheap to do and does help identify problems

Steering- I started with one of the very early JD systems and have moved over the last decade or so to full RTK - its is without doubt the one thing that has undoubtedly improved our bottom line, made life easier and made thing possible that simply were not without it, its the only PF technique I would wholeheartedly recommend

 

[SilliamWhale]

Clive surely if you had a 10 acre field and most of it showing reasonable indices of p, k and ph but a 2 acre area shows up as being very low ph, p and k for some reason you would look to apply more to that area if you could?

 

[Clive]

Clive surely if you had a 10 acre field and most of it showing reasonable indices of p, k and ph but a 2 acre area shows up as being very low ph, p and k for some reason you would look to apply more to that area if you could?

yes if the 2ac bit was VERY low as in extreme, but you don't need a computer full of made up contour maps for that do you ? - my point is these maps are make believe - they infer that at a given point the index is thus when in fact the only hard data they contain is the index at the actual sample point - the rest is smoke and mirrors mathematics frankly but feels oh so clever when you're doing it, its technology for the sake of it rather than the need for it I speak from experience having 10 years ago spent 20k having my entire farm 1ha grid sampled, it returned not a penny of that 20k

I would only use soluble nutrition as a desperate attempt as a short term fix to extremely low indices as well, anything over 2 isn't worthy of consideration or concern when farming "properly" IMO now

If I was going to use soluble base nutrition now it would be based on offtake from yield maps, a few hours with gatekeeper is all it would cost me however I don't think its worthwhile even so

 

[York]

Of course the range of yield limiting factors you speak of goes without saying ..... Often they have nothing to do with nutrition so obviously vra will not improve them . But if an area of a field is poor yielding due to reasons that we can not reasonably fix then vra still has a place because inputs can be reduced for two reasons;1) often poor yielding sites can be higher fertility as less yield has been taken off over a number of years meaning fert application has been in excess, 2) less fert is going to be required going forward.

You mentioned the tools of normal farming are not adequate.... Why is that, we have a brain that is better than any computer model at this stage. We need to put all the known factors together and come up with a plan of attack.

With regard to ratios theory, obviously you are a strong advocate of it. To be honest it is not something we have been taught much about in the main stream in NZ, I have been starting to look into it a little on my soil tests and asking questions. We have a well respected fertiliser industry 'watchdog ' in NZ, Doug Edmeades who cuts through a lot of the crap with regard to soil fertility an fertiliser, and he does not subscribe to ratios...... Not trying to wind you up, but trying to work out if there is anything to offer us here.

As soon as you apply tooo much of one nutrient, which is needed you cause a deficiency of another nutrient. It's all about balancing the nutrients to each other.
to 2: you are right, you need less or better no nutrient you applied when not needed. but now you have to "compensate" to add the other nutrients which are "suffering" or "suppressed" by this one in excess.
There is a very good opportunity to find out by yourself in June as there will be at least 2 seminars taking place, one on the north & one on the south island where you can learn about this and also meet quite a lot of long time practitioners. Some of the highest reputed farmers in NZ are using this approach to even get better and sooner or later this are the farms which are already or going to set the yield & quality marks on various crops.

You also find quite a bit of info when you do here a search on the topic of "Albrecht & Kinsey".
York-Th..

 

[York]

yes if the 2ac bit was VERY low as in extreme, but you don't need a computer full of made up contour maps for that do you ? - my point is these maps are make believe - they infer that at a given point the index is thus when in fact the only hard data they contain is the index at the actual sample point - the rest is smoke and mirrors mathematics frankly but feels oh so clever when you're doing it, its technology for the sake of it rather than the need for it I speak from experience having 10 years ago spent 20k having my entire farm 1ha grid sampled, it returned not a penny of that 20k

I would only use soluble nutrition as a desperate attempt as a short term fix to extremely low indices as well, anything over 2 isn't worthy of consideration or concern when farming "properly" IMO now

If I was going to use soluble base nutrition now it would be based on offtake from yield maps, a few hours with gatekeeper is all it would cost me however I don't think its worthwhile even so

Clive,
I didn't say that you need a computer to do VRT on your farm. The best farmers going forward don't have even a VRT spreader on their farm. They have a very sensible eye & bottom to identify the zones and treat each zone individual what is needed. Within a couple of years this zones can be put together as they have evened out in many cases.
We are talking also about farms with good size, so they range between 200 ha or several 1000 ha. The largest one, which will have VRT spreaders eventually. They all are doing it as it's cheaper to work on the lower yielding areas to have higher yields there than to buy more land. is a investment group with 20+th. ha.
Maybe the reason you didn't archive this was that you used a inadequate tool to analyse what was wrong with your low yielding zones.
York-Th.

 

[Chalky]

I'm with Clive on this. Steering has a great impact where we use it-operator/field efficiency/looks great!!

Personally, if you think you have farming so nailed down that a bit of electronic wizardry that 'messes around the edges' is the next efficiency/profit step to take- I bet a third party could come on a visit & point out something for free that would save/make just as much or more. Different eyes, different management, different experiences.

We use; steering, section control, boom height- on sprayer; yield mapping & steering on combine & JD ATU system on tractors for combi drill etc ; GPS PCN sampling; steering on challenger; section control on Kuhn pneumatic. Would agree that a drill function to reduce overlap would be good- but I am not going to pay a lot to sort it. Seed is cheap.

I have been on farms with all this & far more and they are not putting enough lime on to start with!!

 

[ajd132]

with regard VRA of anything based on soil samples (P,K Ph etc) it's all rubbish IMO - the pretty contour maps are gross oversimplification, the indices do not look like those pretty coloured contours that have been guessed by a mathematical equation etc. there are far better ways to improve availability of base nutrient and Ph than expensive products in bags. I was doing it 15 years ago and it really was a waste of time and money IMO. I have the ability to do it today without costs and don't bother

VRA N I give the benefit of the doubt - at least need is being modeled on real time data, I was doing it 10 years ago with N sensor and more recently trails with satellite image - it does seem to have a positive response some years from my own experience, the agronomy models are getting better all the time, I'm not totally sold on it however, its overpriced IMO for a very simple process and I still feel there are certain flaws / assumptions to the technique like basing N need when your not actually measuring the N content or availability etc ?

VRA seed - I have the ability without cost to do it but really don't see much point, its being done because it can be vs any sound agronomic argument I have seens ? no one knows what the right seed rate is as a blanket rate until 10 months after after drilling so how futile is the idea of changing it +/- 10kgs here and there really ?

Yield mapping - I find useful, it's cheap to do and does help identify problems

Steering- I started with one of the very early JD systems and have moved over the last decade or so to full RTK - its is without doubt the one thing that has undoubtedly improved our bottom line, made life easier and made thing possible that simply were not without it, its the only PF technique I would wholeheartedly recommend

Completely agree with regards to VRA p and K. I get shot down whenever I say bring it up at meetings etc! Just posed the question on twitter again to see what sort of reaction I get this time.

 

[warksfarmer]

I think is more than conspiracy theory - it's just good business for JD

they have been here and seen all this before in South American markets, seen what happens to tractor sales and profits as a result

However they also are smart enough to know that when the tide does envevutably turn that having a well established product is worth a lot of marketing

John Deere and the UK ........... Its a hobby to them. It does not matter to them if they didn't sell another JD item in this country because we are insignificant to their overall business. The infrastructure they have had to put in place to service this island is immense for the return they get. And I am referring to JD USA. JD UK clearly won't say they same because JD pay them wages every month.

 

[warksfarmer]

Hasn't the same happened in North America? Or are we getting the impression everyone over there is no-tilling and strip till drilling and yet they don't?

JD have a full product range for the America's, Australia etc.. Russia if you like. Europe gets neglected as we are relatively small, highly specialised, very demanding as we want max. result on fewer acres. JD have the 750A and at Sima are showing a precision drill. Is it a sign of things to come? Must be. Look at New Holland, Agco etc.. they are all showing direct drills. Hopefully this fashion won't go down the wrong way. MF had a very very strong line up of drills back in their hey days. Hopefully they have some of the old drawings and reports left! Might come in handy.

Family and friends farming in Canada and the states. Its definitely no all no till at all. There is lots of cultivation occurring. Spend a while reading the usa forums and you'll get the idea.

 

[warksfarmer]

Maybe the yanks have just seen past the fools gold that 99% of precision farming its ?

personally the only use of GPS that I can honestly say has had a positive return on my bottom line is driving in straight lines precise widths reducing overlap, and in some specific years VRA N, I've tried most things

This is spot on.

 

[warksfarmer]

3. Vari rate fert (surely placing more in places that need it and less in areas that done must reduce tonnes used and inevitably cost?).

Its a waste of time and money because you cannot accurately 'place' fertiliser correctly. Whether your using a satellite to produce maps, or real time sensors or soil sampling the equipment you then use in the field is incapable of doing this accurately.

Spinning disc spreaders for instance ......... fert being chucked off discs. If your spreading at 24m you have vary the full 24m. What happens if you just need to vary a 6m patch on one side? Does the whole 24m get what the 6m needs or does the 6m get what the 18m needs?

Same for liquid fert because you need individual spray lines to each nozzle to vary accurately. This means individual pumps or some massive expensive pump that can vary rates to individual nozzles.

Soil sampling ........... gives an idea but no way to base complete decisions on.

Real time sensing ......... 'magic eyes' that sit on a cab or on a front linkage. They are looking at a very small proportion of the crop. This is no different that going for a walk in the morning with a hand held tool randomly walking across a field. Also they are operated by software which is only as good as the person who's written it.