The Implications of the No-Till system on FARM Machinery design.

llamedos

New Member
Posted on behalf of @Graham A.B Edwards

Farmers interested in attending the Conservation Agriculture [CA} conference in Hitchin must firstly consider the FEWER work tasks that follow from the introduction of CA-Zero -tillage.There are only a few tasks in no-till as the ECAF Conference [final paper] April 2014 illustrates.These tasks are Direct-seeding,Fertiliser Spreading,Spraying of Chemicals & Transporting the crop from the combine to the storehouse. Rather less work indeed!!.[ECAF is the European no-till federation in Cordoba,Spain]
What this means is that because there is no Ploughing or rotovating there is no need for draught control but,much more importantly,the farm tractor & no-till Ag-machinery combinations can be much LIGHTER & much faster so as to reduce soil-compaction, & fuel consumption but increase the productivity of the labour & machinery.
Whilst it is clear that HEAVY Ploughing tractors [32 million used every day] can pull the Seed-drills,the fertiliser-spreaders, the chemical sprayers & the farm trailers .......they can only do so at an exorbitant fuel-cost [because they are heavy] & at a very low productivity level [because they are designed to be slow}.
There are very important and vastly changing Implications for the world`s farm machinery designers & manufacturers as the world`s volume of no-till reaches [2014] to over 154 Million hectares worldwide.
This conference in Hitchin is particularly significant to the somewhat slow pick-up & understanding of a whole new kind of farming system so well presented in the 6Th Hugh Bunting lecture at Reading University,"the Future of Farming What Needs to Change"G
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 80 42.3%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 66 34.9%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 15.9%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 7 3.7%

Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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