OK guys,pull this one apart.

[Yale]

Letter in this weeks farmers weekly.

So,I’d like to know if there is anything credible in this letter as I have no experience of heavy clay.

Is it just old thinking or managing a different awkward soil type.

My gut feeling is dd would build organic matter and structure to improve drainage.

Opinions?

 

[milkloss]

Heh heh!

When at college we went to see a farm that got the old tea leaves from the factory that made that god awful QT instant tea, it was in layers and broke up the clay fantastically well.

 

[Farma Parma]

all heavy Clay is ploughed here & will continue to be done so.
There's your answer

 

[Kiwi Pete]

We're on heavy clay, for best water infiltration and structure we don't touch it AT ALL, so it can handle 135mm/hr now
You can soon see who cultivates, or waxes their soil biota with herbicides for that matter - neither is as good as doing nothing

 

[SilliamWhale]

Heavy Clay is probably the most difficult to no till and it also probably has the most to gain from not being tilled if you can get it to work.

The biggest problem this year being the small pores don't allow for faster drainage so its basically one of those years. We've just had too much rain from 25th sept basically.

 

[Y Fan Wen]

We're on heavy clay, for best water infiltration and structure we don't touch it AT ALL, so it can handle 135mm/hr now
You can soon see who cultivates, or waxes their soil biota with herbicides for that matter - neither is as good as doing nothing

What crops do you grow?

 

[Kiwi Pete]

What crops do you grow?

Whatever it likes!

I'm here to make money for us.

 

[clbarclay]

I went out for a drive today and saw very few fields that had an autumn planted crop growing on them. Either there might only be one plough left in worcestershire now or ploughing is not a magic bullet in a year like this?

Just checked on the soilscape and no surprises that the area I saw neat rows in were in a freedraining loam area.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Letter in this weeks farmers weekly.

So,I’d like to know if there is anything credible in this letter as I have no experience of heavy clay.

Is it just old thinking or managing a different awkward soil type.

My gut feeling is dd would build organic matter and structure to improve drainage.

Opinions?

You need to look at the bigger picture here, @Yale; if the Earth's crust "needed" flipped inside-out twice a year to "work", as is implied by Ms. Doughty - where/what is the natural mechanism that facilitates this, please?

 

[Bury the Trash]

Whatever it likes!

I'm here to make money for us.

got ne puff balls atm?

 

[Bury the Trash]

You need to look at the bigger picture here, @Yale; if the Earth's crust "needed" flipped inside-out twice a year to "work", as is implied by Ms. Doughty - where/what is the natural mechanism that facilitates this, please?

.yep ther is...........roots, of all lengths and sizes and preferably perennial .. ...oops and i forgot worms...

 

[chaffcutter]

This lady needs to go and visit @Simon Chiles in Kent. If no-till works (and it does) on his soils it will work anywhere imo.

My thoughts have always been that the heavier and higher clay fraction soils would benefit most from no -till. Ploughing up stuff that needs battering into a seedbed with power harrows and suchlike burning lots of fuel and slaughtering the soil fauna mechanically seems totally counter-productive to me.

 

[Michael S]

This letter attracted attention on Twitter. I don't think that there is an argument about soil needing aeration, it's really a difference of opinion about how to do this - tillage or cover cropping. As someone with a mixture of clay soils and being familiar with Windsor series soils the problem in our area has been that when we sowed cover crops in August they didn't grow very well due to the lack of moisture so reducing their effectiveness. Having said that I have managed to drill all I intended although that is not a huge area.

The persistent wet weather has caused some farms to get little or no drilling done regardless of tillage system used. From personal experience this autumn no-till and ploughing has worked best, min-till (Sumo Trio etc) tillage has been the most difficult to drill.

 

[Farma Parma]

This lady needs to go and visit @Simon Chiles in Kent. If no-till works (and it does) on his soils it will work anywhere imo.

My thoughts have always been that the heavier and higher clay fraction soils would benefit most from no -till. Ploughing up stuff that needs battering into a seedbed with power harrows and suchlike burning lots of fuel and slaughtering the soil fauna mechanically seems totally counter-productive to me.

Winter Ploughing is easy to work tho.... even on heavy stuff as i'll demonstrate next spring
The acres i never got sown with winter crops will now be actually easier to sow into a spring one.

 

[Y Fan Wen]

Whatever it likes!

I'm here to make money for us.

So are you a grazier or a dirt farmer?

 

[Kiwi Pete]

So are you a grazier or a dirt farmer?

Yep, red meat and soil are the main things we grow.

 

[GeorgeK]

Just to further the debate, I believe it is said clay retains organic matter better than other soil types when cultivated, and also suffers less from wind/water erosion and nutrient loss.
So maybe it's the best type of soil to cultivate
Not necessarily advocating this btw, our clay is happiest with grass on

 

[Will 1594]

Winter Ploughing is easy to work tho.... even on heavy stuff as i'll demonstrate next spring
The acres i never got sown with winter crops will now be actually easier to sow into a spring one.

Same here on the heavier stuff , plough it dry in September , put subsoiler through to level and knock it down when it will carry you , Less work then in spring , have 3 experiments going at minute 1 Ploughed knocked down , . 2not ploughed deep shakerated twice , 3. Not ploughed Short disced and shallow low disturbance leg through 9 inch , this on some of our heavier lime stone white clay , going for walk round tommorow will take spade and camera
Any of you work this sort of land , how would you dd this as looking to do movement

 

[bobk]

I'm sure no till is possible on clay but equally the fields certainly won't be flat .

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Same here on the heavier stuff , plough it dry in September , put subsoiler through to level and knock it down when it will carry you , Less work then in spring , have 3 experiments going at minute 1 Ploughed knocked down , . 2not ploughed deep shakerated twice , 3. Not ploughed Short disced and shallow low disturbance leg through 9 inch , this on some of our heavier lime stone white clay , going for walk round tommorow will take spade and camera
Any of you work this sort of land , how would you dd this as looking to do movement

With difficulty. It depends how much of your system you are willing to change.
Definitely don't "min till" as this provides the worst of both systems, IMO, that's a technique for boy's land and still is limiting.

If you're happy doing what you're doing, and making a good return, keep doing that - at some point good old-fashioned grass, for a long time, will help.
But if that's not feasible then I'd suggest keep doing what you're doing and leave it for the future generations to figure out.
15 years in grass - strip till - ease into DD and covercrops and livestock