Plough to no till

[Sandy]

Is it possible to switch from a plough/combi drill to no till crop establishment or are you better doing min till for a couple o years. Were in the NE of Scotland with hardly anyone using no till, there is a couple min till but they are few and far between. Soil type is loam no clay mainly spring barley cover crops will be sown after next harvest

 

[Fuzzy]

Just do it, saves buying a load of min till kit !!!

 

[Feldspar]

Biggest problem is harvest traffic. In a wet year ploughed ground ruts so much worse than land that has been strip tilled. Ploughed fields are often quite fluffy out of the wheelings which might be a slight problem for disc drills if there's a lot of straw to contend with or it's wet. Ignoring the wheelings, things like the Claydon thrive in these conditions.

Personally I wouldn't plough everything one year, then sell all your cultivation kit and buy just a no-till drill. A wet harvest will leave you up a creek without a paddle. Strip till does offer a nice way of easing in IMO, but it can put costs up rather than down in the interim.

 

[Clive]

Some have done it successfully but it would be a very steep learning curve

Personally I would recommend shallow mintill with a Uld drill as a way to ease yourself and your soils into it / learn but only for a year or so

 

[Sandy]

I am keeping the plough and drill but maybe trying some kind of secondhand cheap strip drill just to see we don't get many demos up here and if we do there new and usually far to big

 

[SilliamWhale]

Pick the right fields to start on and phase it in. 10% each year or something

 

[Zebbedee]

Can I ask @Sandy what is it you want to achieve from no till, is it a cost thing or labour or soil orientated, is there not a Claydon drill your direction?

 

[No Worries]

I found strip till for a few years levelled fields up nicely. It also gave me the confidence to move less soil and take the next step.

How about a used Claydon? [emoji6]

 

[Sandy]

Can I ask @Sandy what is it you want to achieve from no till, is it a cost thing or labour or soil orientated, is there not a Claydon drill your direction?

The soil personally I think were just beating it to death with power harrows/ploughs the cost and size of these machines is just unreal and how long it takes to make a seedbed with a plough. There is 1 I know of but it's working on sand further up the coast

 

[Zebbedee]

Yes totally agree with you when you stand back and look at what we do sometimes it looks to verge on madness, But at the same time ploughing in our part of the world has its merits too. Be interested too see this thread progress

 

[Acke]

3 years ago we got from mintil/plow to 100% DD !
I'm wery happy with yields. 2013 wery dry, 2014 normal and 2015 wery wet.
Most crops is as good as plowed /mintilled atleast . Exept some peas this year, peas on hevy lowland was overflow by water. Only 3,5ton / ha.
On dry years DD is superior to plowd land!
Also save alot diesel.
Go for notil!

 

[Badshot]

If you have the facility to shallow disc or tine for a year or two it would help the transition, but if not the jump in with a claydon/dts etc, drill at an angle to wheelings and in a year or two you'll be away, as long as your wheelings aren't too deep.

 

[Chae1]

The soil personally I think were just beating it to death with power harrows/ploughs the cost and size of these machines is just unreal and how long it takes to make a seedbed with a plough. There is 1 I know of but it's working on sand further up the coast

Could you get a contractor in to do some to try it before you buy something? Ross Agri at Turriff are claydon dealers and had a demo unit out.

 

[Sandy]

Don't really want a claydon after seeing the crops from one I've seen I think some form of a deeper tine in front of the seed to take all the compaction that we have at the moment

 

[Zebbedee]

Can see your point Sandy about compaction I think maybe osr establishment with subsoilers is a goer but generally proper subsoiling is only required on small areas?? How deep is leading tine on Claydon I thought they looked a nice machine but never seen the results myself,

 

[RTK Farmer]

Id sumo trio or similar for a year using existing drill to help level and firm then go for it after that.

 

[parker]

Don't really want a claydon after seeing the crops from one I've seen I think some form of a deeper tine in front of the seed to take all the compaction that we have at the moment

I think as with most machines it comes down to the operator and conditions on the day of drilling and following few weeks, I have run a claydon for the last four years before switching to no til in that time I have broken all of our yield averages and soils have improved on the same curve, imo strip tillage is a great way to introduce the soil to no til and also the farmer as it gave me more confidence to move less soil.

 

[KennyO]

@Sandy do you have Tatties on your land?

 

[Zebbedee]

@Sandy do you have Tatties on your land?

Now there's a challenge no till tatties,,,,,,

 

[Clive]

Don't really want a claydon after seeing the crops from one I've seen I think some form of a deeper tine in front of the seed to take all the compaction that we have at the moment

Don't worry about compaction, if you go strip till please don't use it deep or your no better off than ploughing - think of the front tine as a trash cleaner and not a subsoiler leg, a couple of inches is fine

You won't get your soils to start structuring if you deep rip them every year just as bad as ploughing almost