Organic Zero-Till - Anyone in the UK

[Simon C]

im trying to set up a (small !) field to try Dr Ingham's organic zero-till. if I can get the right compost to make it happen plan is to balance biology to her instruction and then grow continuous zero-till wheat, ideally with no chemicals but might have to concede glyphosate (balanced with humic acid when applied)

at ORFC she said 10t/ha was possible..............................

Clive, I think you are wasting your time with wheat. Remember the Plant Works guy today said many modern wheat varieties do not even associate with mycoorhizae, they only work in an intensive, spoon fed system. Same as Prof Adrian Newton said at the BASE AGM, none of the new varieties do well under no-till. I think you have more chance of this working with better N scavenging crops like oats, rye or triticale, that have not had their natural resilience bread out of them, have good disease resistance and strong allelopathic defense against weed species.

 

[Clive]

Clive, I think you are wasting your time with wheat. Remember the Plant Works guy today said many modern wheat varieties do not even associate with mycoorhizae, they only work in an intensive, spoon fed system. Same as Prof Adrian Newton said at the BASE AGM, none of the new varieties do well under no-till. I think you have more chance of this working with better N scavenging crops like oats, rye or triticale, that have not had their natural resilience bread out of them, have good disease resistance and strong allelopathic defense against weed species.

good point and it did make me think the same today when he mentioned that, Oats would be a good alternative i think and they are a crop our soils like and naturally want to grow (wild oats do well here if not controlled)

the Ag corporate's really have got us by the balls haven't they ? even in ways we don't even realise yet !

 

[glasshouse]

Soil tillage releases soil nitrogen to the crop. No till will not.

 

[rob1]

Soil tillage releases soil nitrogen to the crop. No till will not.

Thats why no till crops dont look so good to start with but then(hopefully) catch up later

 

[Clive]

Soil tillage releases soil nitrogen to the crop. No till will not.

that must be why no-till simply doesn't work then

 

[RushesToo]

Clive, I think you are wasting your time with wheat. Remember the Plant Works guy today said many modern wheat varieties do not even associate with mycoorhizae, they only work in an intensive, spoon fed system.

Old seed varieties would be interesting to look at?John Innes holds old plant varieties, but not sure if they are available in agricultural quantities or would be any good.

 

[RushesToo]

Some information here:
https://www.jic.ac.uk/germplasm/about.htm

"GRU conserves commercial and research lines, most of which are free of patents and intellectual property rights. They are made freely available to researchers and breeders worldwide. Details of this material are available in web searchable databases [link] which are currently being extended."

 

[Robigus]

Clive, I think you are wasting your time with wheat. Remember the Plant Works guy today said many modern wheat varieties do not even associate with mycoorhizae, they only work in an intensive, spoon fed system. Same as Prof Adrian Newton said at the BASE AGM, none of the new varieties do well under no-till. I think you have more chance of this working with better N scavenging crops like oats, rye or triticale, that have not had their natural resilience bread out of them, have good disease resistance and strong allelopathic defense against weed species.

How modern would you say is too modern? Are we talking about Norman or Squarehead Master or even Emmer?

 

[britt]

Soil tillage releases soil nitrogen to the crop. No till will not.

Nitrogen is released in notill, in summer when the soil warms, plants are growing and can use it (although not as much as is released after tillage).
If you release the N by tilling in autumn it's largely wasted, in spring it can be used better by growing crops if you till as late as possible before planting. But the carbon you burn at the same time means that the soil can store less N for the next crop.

 

[Simon C]

How modern would you say is too modern? Are we talking about Norman or Squarehead Master or even Emmer?

I think he was talking about stuff bread in the last 10 years, so you don't need to go back too far. Just don't get carried away with all the sales hype at cereals this week, the latest big thing won't be better that last years big thing, it could actually be worse.

 

[Cutlerstom]

I've got a friend nearby who farms 3000ac of organic combinables with some 3yr grazed herbal leys. They were thinking about going down the no-till route. I think they're just about to buy some Swedish drill which IIRC can direct drill and then inter-row hoe as well. He recently went to Sweden to look at the system and I think he saw a Swedish organic no-tiller there.

System cameleon wasn't it? Looks interesting kit

 

[dug]

Nitrogen is released in notill, in summer when the soil warms, plants are growing and can use it (although not as much as is released after tillage).
If you release the N by tilling in autumn it's largely wasted, in spring it can be used better by growing crops if you till as late as possible before planting. But the carbon you burn at the same time means that the soil can store less N for the next crop.

Very true, notill preserves and/ or increases soil OM which is relevant to a passage I read years ago that went something like......"the N that is mineralised in a untilled soil happens at a place in the soil profile and at a time in the crops growth that is difficult to replicate by man made means".

 

[Niels]

I've got a friend nearby who farms 3000ac of organic combinables with some 3yr grazed herbal leys. They were thinking about going down the no-till route. I think they're just about to buy some Swedish drill which IIRC can direct drill and then inter-row hoe as well. He recently went to Sweden to look at the system and I think he saw a Swedish organic no-tiller there.

John Pawsey with the Cameleon drill system: http://www.profi.com/news/Swedish-made-three-in-one-drill-1627248.html

 

[Oaklake]

I have not heard of anyone using the Cameleon in an organic no-till over here but will ask them this week egen i meet them. The system is beeing used with great sucess by a lot of organic farmers.
A downside is that it's not a grain/fert combo so you have to make two passes. But is a great piece of engineering!

 

[farming4profit]

it is against most thinking (including my own !) which state greater diversity is the route to soil health

her view is you balance fungi/bacteria ratio and then lift this levels as high as you can via compost and compost teas, you create a soil where the crop (wheat for example) has abundant fungi and bacteria species that it needs for that crop and by mono culture you increase them year on year creating a soil where the conditions are most favourable for that crop and not weeds etc that would in a more conventional unbalanced and diversely cropped soil compete with the cash crop

I am researching a product that enhances soil health and fertility. The product is a combination of nutrients and enzymes and works by increasing the decomposition rate of plant residues thereby minimising the environment within which disease pathogens thrive. The product also has an oxygenating component that helps aerate soil structure. Rapid decomposition of plant residues increases the availability of the carbon required and the oxygenating component, the Oxygen needed by the N-fixing rhizobia to fix nitrogen and make it available to plant roots. The product can be tank-mixed with Glyphosate or other herbicides and applied to the soil pre and post harvest, pre-planting and pre-emergnece. One application per season. I am awaiting yield trial results from this harvest. There is no doubt that bean plants grown with this product have been bigger, healthier with enhanced root systems. While cover crops are beneficial they are limited in their use and cannot always be realistically built into a rotation. Application of this product could bridge that gap.

Other formulations of the same product have increased Potato yields. There are formulations for cereals, oilseed rape and maize whereby disease impact levels are reduced, grain-fill increased and crops less prone to late-season stress. I am keen to locate growers who would be interested to trial with split application fields by example. Cost ranges from £20 to £30/ha

 

[Feldspar]

I am researching a product that enhances soil health and fertility. The product is a combination of nutrients and enzymes and works by increasing the decomposition rate of plant residues thereby minimising the environment within which disease pathogens thrive. The product also has an oxygenating component that helps aerate soil structure. Rapid decomposition of plant residues increases the availability of the carbon required and the oxygenating component, the Oxygen needed by the N-fixing rhizobia to fix nitrogen and make it available to plant roots. The product can be tank-mixed with Glyphosate or other herbicides and applied to the soil pre and post harvest, pre-planting and pre-emergnece. One application per season. I am awaiting yield trial results from this harvest. There is no doubt that bean plants grown with this product have been bigger, healthier with enhanced root systems. While cover crops are beneficial they are limited in their use and cannot always be realistically built into a rotation. Application of this product could bridge that gap.

Other formulations of the same product have increased Potato yields. There are formulations for cereals, oilseed rape and maize whereby disease impact levels are reduced, grain-fill increased and crops less prone to late-season stress. I am keen to locate growers who would be interested to trial with split application fields by example. Cost ranges from £20 to £30/ha

Do you need people with weighbridges / other similarly accurate ways of quickly measuring yields?

 

[farming4profit]

I dont see why it would be essential - it would certainly help. I'm not talking of replicated trials such as would be done by NIABTAG. This would be for personal farmer feedback and assessed through the life of the crop. Soil is a personal issue after all. Simply splitting a field in half and assessing one half against the other. Harvest would be the last assessment. In between you would have disease level comparison, rooting comparison, N-nodules on the roots comparison (if beans / peas), marketable ware fraction & yield comparison if potatoes etc.

 

[New Puritan]

Sorry to rake up an old(ish) thread, but this is really interesting. I've just taken on a small farm tenancy for an organic arable business, and as it's not going to be my main source of income (in fact it will probably be a drain on the others for the first couple of years...); I'm quite keen to experiment a bit. No-till seems a worthwhile avenue to explore, but it's on heavy clay which might make it even more of a bad idea.

@Clive you mentioned compost teas. What do you make these out of, and how much do you need? Is this like the kind of stuff gardeners make out of nettles / comfrey / seaweed and so on?

Fertility-wise it's been maintained historically via clover leys, field beans and mineral applications of P and K. Plus the odd load of bulk municipal compost. I've also been offered brewery waste and possibly some (PAS110 certified) digestate from a food processing plant up the road. Something that has always got me quite excited is building up soil organic matter, so I'm looking at various local options for what is available.

 

[newholland]

@Clive .......plenty of perfect muck available by the artic load , fully antibiotic free, composted for 2 years, certified fully organic etc......... all we need in return is some fully organic wheat straw and some fully organic feed wheat......and its a challenge to find any....

 

[Tractor tom7480]

I am researching a product that enhances soil health and fertility. The product is a combination of nutrients and enzymes and works by increasing the decomposition rate of plant residues thereby minimising the environment within which disease pathogens thrive. The product also has an oxygenating component that helps aerate soil structure. Rapid decomposition of plant residues increases the availability of the carbon required and the oxygenating component, the Oxygen needed by the N-fixing rhizobia to fix nitrogen and make it available to plant roots. The product can be tank-mixed with Glyphosate or other herbicides and applied to the soil pre and post harvest, pre-planting and pre-emergnece. One application per season. I am awaiting yield trial results from this harvest. There is no doubt that bean plants grown with this product have been bigger, healthier with enhanced root systems. While cover crops are beneficial they are limited in their use and cannot always be realistically built into a rotation. Application of this product could bridge that gap.

Other formulations of the same product have increased Potato yields. There are formulations for cereals, oilseed rape and maize whereby disease impact levels are reduced, grain-fill increased and crops less prone to late-season stress. I am keen to locate growers who would be interested to trial with split application fields by example. Cost ranges from £20 to £30/ha

I'd be interested to find out more about the chemical product you tried & how it worked....any info to share. . .? Thanks.