Went to Dale drills open day up the road and saw great crops for little fuel / time.
Came back and went and burnt hundreds of litres of diesel turning big clay lumps into slightly smaller ones.
Cant last. Got to change.
I farm 1400ac or so of land in Lincolnshire. Most of it is rented / contracted etc, but I am an owner of 50ac and a tenant or about another 200. In the main it is epically strong, with the usual problems of blackgrass but not terrible BG. The lighter bits are near rivers, and the heavier bits dont have great Drainage. Blue clay about 2 inches down. I tend to get high yields, but at great fuel and time costs. I grow winter and spring barley, winter oats, winter and spring wheat, winter and spring beans, spring linseed, winter OSR and also have some permenant pastures. No fixed rotation - I tend to try and get as much gap between crops as possible and often double (or if you count the oats) triple break. Most residues are put back to the soil and I trade grass keep with a stock farmer for the muck from his shed. Very seldom plough, mainly as I am not very good at it.
I have direct drilled spring beans before, and have put the linseed into autumn subsoiled land to good effect.
I am not looking to direct drill everything but would like to work towards having the view to sensibly use it as a tool. The way I am going to try it is a) get Dale drills in to try a bit if they have time and b) put more if not all of my spring crops in using either autumn subsoiling or a cover crop / enhanced volunteers system ie chucking on a few more oats out of the shed. I am already trying to be more sensitive to my soil as regards fungicides, insecticides, herbicides and fertilisers.
Came back and went and burnt hundreds of litres of diesel turning big clay lumps into slightly smaller ones.
Cant last. Got to change.
I farm 1400ac or so of land in Lincolnshire. Most of it is rented / contracted etc, but I am an owner of 50ac and a tenant or about another 200. In the main it is epically strong, with the usual problems of blackgrass but not terrible BG. The lighter bits are near rivers, and the heavier bits dont have great Drainage. Blue clay about 2 inches down. I tend to get high yields, but at great fuel and time costs. I grow winter and spring barley, winter oats, winter and spring wheat, winter and spring beans, spring linseed, winter OSR and also have some permenant pastures. No fixed rotation - I tend to try and get as much gap between crops as possible and often double (or if you count the oats) triple break. Most residues are put back to the soil and I trade grass keep with a stock farmer for the muck from his shed. Very seldom plough, mainly as I am not very good at it.
I have direct drilled spring beans before, and have put the linseed into autumn subsoiled land to good effect.
I am not looking to direct drill everything but would like to work towards having the view to sensibly use it as a tool. The way I am going to try it is a) get Dale drills in to try a bit if they have time and b) put more if not all of my spring crops in using either autumn subsoiling or a cover crop / enhanced volunteers system ie chucking on a few more oats out of the shed. I am already trying to be more sensitive to my soil as regards fungicides, insecticides, herbicides and fertilisers.