Organic no till

[scotston]

Posted a video of the inter row weeder working over on the gps thread. This is a shallow ploughed lentil/pea stubble, drilled with a front press into the ploughing with straight barley to be used as a reference for the larger neighbouring field of intercrop of peas and barley. This was a successful trial of the robot weeder with 70mm duck foot tines tickling between 150mm rows to take out the little guys and hopefully give a wee N boost too.

 

[glasshouse]

Aren't we are just talking around the Norfolk Four Course Rotation? Grass, Cereal, Break, Cereal, Grass? Remember those farmers were up against a Gov determined to drive down food costs for industrial workers, with no subsidy, no well funded trials in place, no agrochemcials, just what they knew and had experienced for themselves. Of course it wasn't perfect, but I'm sure that there is definitely something in what they were doing, and its a good starting point.

Landlords imposed that rotation, not govt

 

[Muddyroads]

Posted a video of the inter row weeder working over on the gps thread. This is a shallow ploughed lentil/pea stubble, drilled with a front press into the ploughing with straight barley to be used as a reference for the larger neighbouring field of intercrop of peas and barley. This was a successful trial of the robot weeder with 70mm duck foot tines tickling between 150mm rows to take out the little guys and hopefully give a wee N boost too.

Sorry to be thick, but which thread is the video in?

 

[glasshouse]

So as an organic farmer, I have looking at direct drilling for a number of years as I think it is the way forward on my small thin soiled farm. Never been able to plough my shallow Cotswold brash well enough to burry all the weed seeds.so does the long term direct drillers think that shallow ploughing one year in a 7 year rotation to terminate the fertility building let would be excitable and still get the benefit of direct drilling.

You cant bury weed seeds
Theyare right through the soil

 

[Highland Farmer]

Looks really clean. I've just managed to get our spring oats in here. This is the field after the chisel plough 2x at 90 degrees and then a quick disc before sowing. A good bit of green still near the surface which is what I wanted.

 

[scotston]

Sorry to be thick, but which thread is the video in?

Precision farming and GPS

 

[scotston]

Any body care to educate me on the idea of a nitrogen boost to the crop when tilling please? Wondering whether I'm stealing from the little guys or if it's ok?

 

[Highland Farmer]

Any body care to educate me on the idea of a nitrogen boost to the crop when tilling please? Wondering whether I'm stealing from the little guys or if it's ok?

As understand it there is a two fold benefit. 1. The weeds aren't competing with the crop for nitrogen, other nutrients and sunlight and 2. The bit of nitrogen already taken by the weeds gets released and is available for the crop when the weeds die. Yours looks very clean even before weeding. Mine had and still has a weed bank on some fields that will sprout like a blanket of green...

 

[martian]

Also...by disturbing the soil, you are allowing air in which oxidises your humus, which releases nutrients (particularly nitrogen) which are then made available to your crop. Two steps forward, one step back, in that your crop gets a boost, but your soil loses some treasure.

 

[scotston]

That makes sense, and my gut was correct, it has to come from somewhere. Which I can handle as long as I have both decent grass leys, grazed with sheep and cattle, and a diverse rotation including quite a number of leguminous crops and covers. We're using radish in two fields, and vetch with phacelia in another. We also have a homemade bird seed mix comprising oats and beans. We may need more covers to spread the love and compensate for our extra tillage requirements. This year's diverse cropping is wheat, barley, oats, beans as our main crops. We have a trial with a scottish organic oilseed group for rape. A trial with peas and barley and then straight peas as a reference crop for the Hutton institute. Linseed, lentils and now hemp if the temperatures would ever warm up. Our first field of lupins went in yesterday. A field of oat/grass for arable silage and grass blocks for summer grazing for the cattle. The main crops are about 50 acre each to provide for the layer diet, the others are to find a way to supplement the protein and oil requirements in the diet. All straw and grass is processed and recycled through the cattle. The hemp is for sh1!s and giggles.

 

[sjt01]

I found this on YouTube, organic no till maize - you need to have subtitles turned on for the English

I am trying to get suitable peas to give it a go this year after barley before maize.

 

[scotston]

winter peas looks like a good cover if I can get it established up here in time. Not sure we grow a lot of maize in Scotchland though... My brother is adamant that the weedy understory of an organic stubble is sufficient to call a winter cover which we graze 300 odd blackies on over winter. Certainly they work hard at tearing it all down and the very weedy bankings. We also had an argument about the effects of rape volunteers after our 12 acre trial but he had a decent idea to simply let it regrow and fatten lambs on it. I reckon we could also punch some turnip or kale into the rape stubble to see what happens.

 

[New Puritan]

Thanks for the link to the older thread. It's a very good read. Lentils were fine but weeds were an issue. I ended up combining them at a foot off the ground but had the reel as high as possible dealing with volunteer rape. barsteward. But they grew quite happily. This year we're going to get the robotic weeder working them hard. Yes hodmedods. Plough was around £18k for 8 furrow reversible. Done a magic job at 4 inches. Just enough to turn the weeds and grass upside down. Not great seeing brown soil but only for a month from stu like to growing crop so hopefully not too much carbon lost. Adding hemp and lupins to our rotation this year. Bees should be happy as we're gonna have around a dozen flowering crops. I'll post a drone flowering pic of the farm hopefully at some point.

Thanks for your reply @scotston . If I combined lentils at a foot off the ground there'd be nothing going into the combine - were yours a tall crop? The thing I've found with lentils is they need to die down almost completely before I can harvest them, and then I have to have the header right on the floor to get them. I still lose loads under the header though, as they all grow back over the following month or so.

 

[Scholsey]

Hope no one is offended if I post a couple of plough pictures! Maximum of 4", just enough to turn the docks and grasses over. Next step is direct drill if we can get the weeder to work.

Sorry, what make of plough is this? would love to find a ecomat but seem to be like rocking horse shite.

 

[Sid]

Sorry, what make of plough is this? would love to find a ecomat but seem to be like rocking horse shite.

I've tried as well.
For years

 

[Scholsey]

I've tried as well.
For years

don’t even show them on the UK kv website! Have to change country to one on the continent.

 

[Sid]

don’t even show them on the UK kv website! Have to change country to one on the continent.

I don't think the sold much more than double figures in the UK.

 

[Al R]

I don't think the sold much more than double figures in the UK.

I’ve seen a few for sale over the years BUT never looked at them, can’t remember if their auto reset or not. DD with a full armoury of herbicides can be hard enough let alone trying it organic, and for that matter, I’m out

 

[scotston]

Thanks for your reply @scotston . If I combined lentils at a foot off the ground there'd be nothing going into the combine - were yours a tall crop? The thing I've found with lentils is they need to die down almost completely before I can harvest them, and then I have to have the header right on the floor to get them. I still lose loads under the header though, as they all grow back over the following month or so.

Apologies. I did have the header flat on the floor with the autocontour working hard. They grew up to about a foot and then kinda of fell back down to 6" come harvest time. It was the fact that I couldn't see them at all because of the weeds, and rape that were a foot to two feet above. Not an enjoyable experience for the combine operator. Hoping the weeder will do us a shift this year.

 

[scotston]

Sorry, what make of plough is this? would love to find a ecomat but seem to be like rocking horse shite.

Ovlac. The ecomat is now Europe only. There was a shallow version of an overum but typically none of the sales boys know or care about these things. Too much like hard work for them. Ovlac boy said they sell loads of these shallow ploughs in Europe for exactly my job, organic weed burying. But only 1 other in the UK. Maybe change now though.