SimTech Aitchison Drills

@neilo. I am similarly risk averse when it comes to a light cultivation.

But........

Last spring I did what you are doing, but the other way around. Ewes were grazing spring oats in Feb / March which then went into forage rape / st. turnips in May. I worked most of the field to a depth of 2 / 3inches, then ring rolled and left a month for a good rain. However left a couple of test runs (say 4 acres in total) untouched. Field drilled on the diagonal with Duncan ecoseeder. Establishment was slower on the untouched ground but the I couldn`t tell any difference across the field in the fully grown crop.

The cultivation was essential where the straw lying pads had been and where I had tramped about feeding beet and filling ring feeders with silage.
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
Grazing root crops with sheep over the winter is always going to cap the surface to an inch or two. Where we have grazed swedes and DD'ed grass afterwards, that cap has been sufficiently broken by the weather to go straight in. A light cultivation just speeds up that drying/warming IME.
+1
for any DD'ing to be optimal, the surface really needs to be dry enough for the point of the tine to be able to vibrate and create a tiny tilth IME
the word above that stood out:: "smear" and if the point is smearing the bottom of the drill then it either needs some drying time or some way of letting air into the surface - especially if clayish soil.
The bigger the seed the more you notice the effects, on our soils at least. (y)
(Even a cambridge roller in the right conditions will speed the process, that was often what we used, a 6.3m one with the breaker rings in between.
You'd think rolling would be the last thing to do, but it did work well for ex-sheep ground.
 

Bury the Trash

Member
Mixed Farmer
for an
+1
for any DD'ing to be optimal, the surface really needs to be dry enough for the point of the tine to be able to vibrate and create a tiny tilth IME
the word above that stood out:: "smear" and if the point is smearing the bottom of the drill then it either needs some drying time or some way of letting air into the surface - especially if clayish soil.
The bigger the seed the more you notice the effects, on our soils at least. (y)
(Even a cambridge roller in the right conditions will speed the process, that was often what we used, a 6.3m one with the breaker rings in between.
You'd think rolling would be the last thing to do, but it did work well for ex-sheep ground.
The bit about the bit of tilth around the seed was found out here with direct drilling 35 plus years ago so that's not new info .....nor is the fact that not enough acres could be covered in those optimum conditions/narrow window.....with our 'smeary' type damp/unpredictable maritime climate.........

its running at about 98% here this morning btw and not even raining
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
for an

The bit about the bit of tilth around the seed was found out here with direct drilling 35 plus years ago so that's not new info .....nor is the fact that not enough acres could be covered in those optimum conditions/narrow window.....with our 'smeary' type damp/unpredictable maritime climate.........

its running at about 98% here this morning btw and not even raining
Not wishing to got OT but the Taege drills are amazing in those type of conditions (for a tine drill) due to the tine angle - the box the tines are clamped to is angled so the point is behind, which makes the vibration much more vertical, like a sewing machine needle almost.. and very good for tilth generation as a result.

But, the Aitchison is a damn good drill, I rate them very highly, Duncan also.
Will likely be an Aitchison in the shed here before too long (y) very simple
 

Bury the Trash

Member
Mixed Farmer
Not wishing to got OT but the Taege drills are amazing in those type of conditions (for a tine drill) due to the tine angle - the box the tines are clamped to is angled so the point is behind, which makes the vibration much more vertical, like a sewing machine needle almost.. and very good for tilth generation as a result.

But, the Aitchison is a damn good drill, I rate them very highly, Duncan also.
Will likely be an Aitchison in the shed here before too long (y) very simple
I forgot to mention that the experience all those years ago was with straight forward disc drills.

...but then the 'zealots' might tell me its got not a lot to do with the machine more the mentality....:unsure:


longish ideal weather windows are what is needed. Arable in Sweden might be like here....
 
Any
I forgot to mention that the experience all those years ago was with straight forward disc drills.

...but then the 'zealots' might tell me its got not a lot to do with the machine more the mentality....:unsure:


longish ideal weather windows are what is needed. Arable in Sweden might be like here....

Many parameters seem to be similar, unstable weather one of them. West coast is wetter and east drier here.

I still look for experience of OSR drilling with T-Sems. Maybe I should rephrase; why would you NOT buy a T-Sem as a purely arable CA farmer?
 

rob1

Member
Location
wiltshire
Any


Many parameters seem to be similar, unstable weather one of them. West coast is wetter and east drier here.

I still look for experience of OSR drilling with T-Sems. Maybe I should rephrase; why would you NOT buy a T-Sem as a purely arable CA farmer?
I used it to drill OSR once and it was fine, it was the first time I had done any DD(2011) so it could have been luck, not grown any since but cant see and reason why it would be ok, its a great simple drill
 
I used it to drill OSR once and it was fine, it was the first time I had done any DD(2011) so it could have been luck, not grown any since but cant see and reason why it would be ok, its a great simple drill

I guess my main concerns are placement of seed, too deep perhaps, and if OSR generally want more loosening beneath seeding depth. @Andy Howard and @Dan Powell have theirs on Classified, perhaps they have something to say? :)
 

rob1

Member
Location
wiltshire
I guess my main concerns are placement of seed, too deep perhaps, and if OSR generally want more loosening beneath seeding depth. @Andy Howard and @Dan Powell have theirs on Classified, perhaps they have something to say? :)
we are on clay but didnt notice any problems with compaction, seed depth is always difficult on such a small seed and it was the first time I used the drill and it was fine, just need to allow the tractor lift arms to be on the slotted position so the drill follows the rear roller not the tractor wheels, some here autocast behind the combine header ok so I guess drilling shallow is ok, just do a good rolling
 

Richard III

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
CW5 Cheshire
I drill rape with a Sim-Tec, it is my drill of choice for this situation - there is also a Weaving GD in the shed. I've used the Sim-Tec for 9 years now, all No Till. For the first two years some roots would go occasionally go sideways before they went down, they just go straight down now.

Here's a picture of this years rape, taken 30th Nov, on a turning headland. I'm into low disturbance, so take 2 out of 3 coulters off, but there is no need to do this. There is also a berseem companion in there too.

IMG_5941.JPG


A neighbour drilled his rape at the same time with a GD drill, some failed, he redrilled two weeks later with my Sim-Tec and now has a crop all over.

The Sim-Tec will sow crops into very wet soil providing you have surface trash to stop the rear roller picking up. The crops will then emerge fine, so long as you don't get heavy rain for the first week after drilling. I think heavy rain after drilling is a problem in No Till no matter what drill you use.

The Sim-Tec is a very good tine drill, but makes no effort to close the slot. If there are slugs about, the slots need closing with a roller, straw rake, upside down grass harrows or something.

@Simon C is a long time user and now on his second Sim-Tec!
 
I drill rape with a Sim-Tec, it is my drill of choice for this situation - there is also a Weaving GD in the shed. I've used the Sim-Tec for 9 years now, all No Till. For the first two years some roots would go occasionally go sideways before they went down, they just go straight down now.

Here's a picture of this years rape, taken 30th Nov, on a turning headland. I'm into low disturbance, so take 2 out of 3 coulters off, but there is no need to do this. There is also a berseem companion in there too.

View attachment 635614

A neighbour drilled his rape at the same time with a GD drill, some failed, he redrilled two weeks later with my Sim-Tec and now has a crop all over.

The Sim-Tec will sow crops into very wet soil providing you have surface trash to stop the rear roller picking up. The crops will then emerge fine, so long as you don't get heavy rain for the first week after drilling. I think heavy rain after drilling is a problem in No Till no matter what drill you use.

The Sim-Tec is a very good tine drill, but makes no effort to close the slot. If there are slugs about, the slots need closing with a roller, straw rake, upside down grass harrows or something.

@Simon C is a long time user and now on his second Sim-Tec!

You may have sold the first T-Sem to Sweden for them with that post! I see the clover, did that myself this year. Berseem clover grew better in the real wet places. Died of in November or December.

What forward speed are you normally drilling at? I guess stones are a factor. You tend to go faster with fewer tines when drilling OSR?
 

Richard III

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
CW5 Cheshire
You may have sold the first T-Sem to Sweden for them with that post! I see the clover, did that myself this year. Berseem clover grew better in the real wet places. Died of in November or December.

What forward speed are you normally drilling at? I guess stones are a factor. You tend to go faster with fewer tines when drilling OSR?

The drill is easy to pull, so tine number doesn't really affect my drilling speed. I will drill rape at 10-12k, but probably slow down to 8k when going deeper for beans, simply because there is more disturbance at greater depth.

I have stones, but not too bad, the old style points will chip off at the front sometimes. They have now redesigned the points to be stronger and wear better, they have been out a while, I've got some but not used them yet.
 

Ruston3w

Member
Location
south suffolk
We don't grow rape but do drill 400 acres of radish based cc, if it is dry/hard the discs take a bit of hammering at speed. you can't really lift them out in barley straw as they need to cut all the time to keep the coulters clear.
I fitted a new set of disc hubs/spindles this autumn which are better designed and hopefully won't break up as some of the old ones had. I am sure is was drilling in early August that did the damage before.
I re-used a set of worn tips last July on a couple of fields which were really hard, the base plate had gone but still had tungsten down the front, better penetration and less disturbance.....we couldn't tell where we changed the tips.
 

Dan Powell

Member
Location
Shropshire
I guess my main concerns are placement of seed, too deep perhaps, and if OSR generally want more loosening beneath seeding depth. @Andy Howard and @Dan Powell have theirs on Classified, perhaps they have something to say? :)
I'm going organic. I wouldn't be selling the Simtech if I was carrying on with no till. It's very versatile but not great on top of ploughing. I have never seen any smearing with it here and last year's Simtech-drilled OSR yielded over 5t/ha with 46% oil content.
 
Great input. We're used to applying considerable amount of NPK when drilling spring crops and OSR, I guess a front hopper would be possible here. For OSR it wouldn't really be required if there's a small unit mounted for seed that would leave the main hopper for fertilizer.

@Dan Powell and @H.Jackson I know several farmers with Cameleon here, they're all happy with them. One of them will try min-till organic with it, mounted cutting discs in front of the coulters. I think Gothia have sold over a hundred of them now.
 

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