Plough to no till

[Suddy]

Getting your soil chemistry right is the most important issue. Buy a true direct tine drill with individual tine seed depth placement. Also have a wide crop rotation using crops with strong roots ie winter beans, winter linseed. Your soil and rotation picks your drill not tff fashion. I’ve. DD for 10 years straight after plough and power Harrow on glacial till at 850 ft above sea level. Not easy but it works

 

[Clive]

Getting your soil chemistry right is the most important issue. Buy a true direct tine drill with individual tine seed depth placement. Also have a wide crop rotation using crops with strong roots ie winter beans, winter linseed. Your soil and rotation picks your drill not tff fashion. I’ve. DD for 10 years straight after plough and power Harrow on glacial till at 850 ft above sea level. Not easy but it works

What zerotill tine drills have individual seed depth control ?

Dale and seed-hawk are the only ones I can think of but depth behind the Coulter is almost as bad as no individual seed depth at all imo

 

[Banana Bar]

I read an interesting idea / method to convert by a farmer in teh USA recently

he decided that he could afford to forgo 10% of his gross output a year and still be profitable

so he took 10% out of production and cover cropped it, he sprays it weekly with sugar to feed biology

next season he zerotills / low input that area -using a contractor so he doesn't invest in any new zerotill machinery

he then takes the next 10% out and repeats

when he reaches a point (yr 5) where he has more area under zero-till that tillage he sell his tillage gear and buy zerotill gear - he now uses a contractor to establish his ever decreasing tillage area

year 10 and he is 100% zerotill and no longer needs the contractors at all


Not suggesting this is the right way to do it but it was certainly an approach I had not come across before

Sensible approach, good contractor dependant though.

 

[Suddy]

What zerotill tine drills have individual seed depth control ?

Dale and seed-hawk are the only ones I can think of but depth behind the Coulter is almost as bad as no individual seed depth at all imo

Rubbish. It’s a hundred times better than having no press wheel. It also gives soil to seed contact and eliminates the need for slug pellets most of the time. Amazone condor is another good drill. My Moore unidrill also has press wheels behind the coulter certainly not as good as a deere drill for seed placement but good enough.
I made the mistake of buying a strip till drill years ago thinking it was a DD I don’t like seeing other people doing the same.
There needs to be more on here about the benefits of DD not strip till.

 

[Clive]

Rubbish. It’s a hundred times better than having no press wheel. It also gives soil to seed contact and eliminates the need for slug pellets most of the time. Amazone condor is another good drill. My Moore unidrill also has press wheels behind the coulter certainly not as good as a deere drill for seed placement but good enough.
I made the mistake of buying a strip till drill years ago thinking it was a DD I don’t like seeing other people doing the same.
There needs to be more on here about the benefits of DD not strip till.

Can’t agree (I ran a 9m Dale for a season) and a seedhawk many years ago

Depth after the coulter is retrospective so imagine as you approach a low dip, such as a combine wheeling, the Coulter runs too shallow as it’s depth is being gauged from the level ground behind the Coulter

As you get past the dip with the Coulter the gauge wheel is now down the dip lifting the Coulter away from the surface of the now level ground

Gauge wheels need to be alongside coulters or its best not to bother with individual depth control at all - this is from experience of Dale, seedhawk, 750a and Horsch CO in ULD zerotill situations over the last decade

I’m not sure what you mean about needing to be more about DD on here ? There is an entire section and possibly 100k plus posts about that.. Most say there is far too much preaching about zerotill here ! There is no where else on the internet with as much zerotill content by miles, we have an entire section even !

 

[Suddy]

Can’t agree (I ran a 9m Dale for a season) and a seedhawk many years ago

Depth after the coulter is retrospective so imagine as you approach a low dip, such as a combine wheeling, the Coulter runs too shallow as it’s depth is being gauged from the level ground behind the Coulter

As you get past the dip with the Coulter the gauge wheel is now down the dip lifting the Coulter away from the surface of the now level ground

Gauge wheels need to be alongside coulters or its best not to bother with individual depth control at all - this is from experience of Dale, seedhawk, 750a and Horsch CO in ULD zerotill situations over the last decade

I’m not sure what you mean about needing to be more about DD on here ? There is an entire section and possibly 100k plus posts about that.. Most say there is far too much preaching about zerotill here ! There is no where else on the internet with as much zerotill content by miles, we have an entire section even !

You cannot compare a disc drill to tine drill.
I don’t need telling how to use my drill thanks
This thread is about a new direct driller on heavy ground with probably high rain fall. After combining he will have wheelings. If he combines the same way as he would drill a tine drill with wheels would make a perfect Job. A rigid tine drill would place seed above ground in the wheelings.
I never said there was too much about DD. I said there was too many people on here thinking there are DD when they Are strip tilling then complaining that DD doesn’t work or then not been able to gain from lower N fungicides and slug pellets
Keep your knickers on Clive certainly not knocking the forum.

 

[Clive]

You cannot compare a disc drill to tine drill.
I don’t need telling how to use my drill thanks
This thread is about a new direct driller on heavy ground with probably high rain fall. After combining he will have wheelings. If he combines the same way as he would drill a tine drill with wheels would make a perfect Job. A rigid tine drill would place seed above ground in the wheelings.
I never said there was too much about DD. I said there was too many people on here thinking there are DD when they Are strip tilling then complaining that DD doesn’t work or then not been able to gain from lower N fungicides and slug pellets
Keep your knickers on Clive certainly not knocking the forum.

I’m not telling you how to use your drill - I’m simply sharing my experience.of various points of Coulter depth control having used various drill over large areas in various conditions over the last decade plus

It’s only my opinion not my instruction, you clearly find retrospective depth control fine on zerotill drills, I don’t , and I was simply sharing that view / experience


I agree 100% re strip tilling getting mixed up with zerotill - it’s really not the same thing at all as you say but for many I guess it’s an important transition agronomically or psychologically even

 

[Brisel]

Too many threads and arguments on what DD really means. Ultra low surface disturbance zero till or a one pass sowing machine that may or may not have deeper working discs/tines/whatever on board, you'll find endless threads on the merits of each design. There's more than one way to skin the proverbial cat.