Well this year we have had the best spring barley yields ever using a power harrow drill combination.Our glacial soils benefit from autumn ploughing and winter weathering and just crumble in spring when sown. When we used to sow wheat 30 years ago it was the only way to beat the weather in the autumn here ploughing grass and sowing immediately. I would say it was no worse than watching our neighbours stir porridge with their mini till cultivators when the soil is too wet as it is now and as for the tatties being lifted just now then the tracks are going to leave a lot of soil damage with very little chance of wheat being sown. Have seen massive gully erosion on their fields down the tramlines in the spring with the combination of hard ground and heavy winter rains
i would agree they are “no worse than min-till cultivators”.
mintil is the work of the devil - grass weeds and slug nirvana, and still destroys soil structure and biology networks, not sure i can see any point in that, ultimately its just “bad ploughing” really - but I guess because it involves big sexy tractors it was a pretty easy sell
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