To wet

[Clive]

Who has time, money and weather windows for all this. Left as stubble after harvest with a cover of weeds and volunteers cos there's no time to do anything else with it. Wait till it's reasonably dry in the spring, in with the drag to loosen it up and help it dry. Power Harrow, drill. Plenty of worms. Decent crop.

My accounts tell a story that this is a very much cheaper, timely and more profitable way of farming than I ever managed with the help of a power-harrow but each to their own

 

[BSH]

Who has time, money and weather windows for all this. Left as stubble after harvest with a cover of weeds and volunteers cos there's no time to do anything else with it. Wait till it's reasonably dry in the spring, in with the drag to loosen it up and help it dry. Power Harrow, drill. Plenty of worms. Decent crop.

The less work you do the more time you have to plan I find

 

[DrWazzock]

I am gradually working towards as little soil movement as possible and natural restructuring. So I am in general agreement with you. I drilled all of my winter wheat straight into OSR stubbles and its very good on the whole but some heavier areas show signs of poor rooting due to compaction, some areas were thinned by slug damage.

I am struggling with what to do after beet and sheep grazing the aftermath. I dare say the light land would drill without cultivation, but the heavy land had gone down very tight. Can cut a crop into it but it does suffer with the compaction restricting root growth.

Dropping beet again would make life easier but it's a very good payer here.

Grassing the lot down would be the sensible option.

 

[DRC]

I am gradually working towards as little soil movement as possible and natural restructuring. So I am in general agreement with you. I drilled all of my winter wheat straight into OSR stubbles and its very good on the whole but some heavier areas show signs of poor rooting due to compaction, some areas were thinned by slug damage.

I am struggling with what to do after beet and sheep grazing the aftermath. I dare say the light land would drill without cultivation, but the heavy land had gone down very tight. Can cut a crop into it but it does suffer with the compaction restricting root growth.

Dropping beet again would make life easier but it's a very good payer here.

Grassing the lot down would be the sensible option.

Don’t let the tail wag the dog. If beet is a good payer, why consider sacrificing it just so you can say a no tiller. Plough it for goodness sake, it doesn’t have to be overly deep.
I keep considering a no till approach, but on a farm this size( 400 acres, with nearly half that going into good paying maize or potato let, it gets ploughed. We also get copious amounts of muck and slurry, with 6 tankers and 2 solid muck spreaders on the farm this week, so I’m adding lots of organic matter and fertility . This means it’s not really worth running another drill, other than the one that best follows the plough. The good old 3m combination disc drill. Tried and tested, end of.
I usually do most ploughing myself , but a bit pushed this week, I called in the contractor .
6 f plough behind a brand new JD, and he’s charging £21 acre. So basically I could have the whole farm ploughed for not much more than £8k a year. Nice clean start , no messing with stale seed beds and hardly use roundup.
Why oh why is it seen as the devils work is beyond me.

 

[Clive]

Don’t let the tail wag the dog. If beet is a good payer, why consider sacrificing it just so you can say a no tiller. Plough it for goodness sake, it doesn’t have to be overly deep.
I keep considering a no till approach, but on a farm this size( 400 acres, with nearly half that going into good paying maize or potato let, it gets ploughed. We also get copious amounts of muck and slurry, with 6 tankers and 2 solid muck spreaders on the farm this week, so I’m adding lots of organic matter and fertility . This means it’s not really worth running another drill, other than the one that best follows the plough. The good old 3m combination disc drill. Tried and tested, end of.
I usually do most ploughing myself , but a bit pushed this week, I called in the contractor .
6 f plough behind a brand new JD, and he’s charging £21 acre. So basically I could have the whole farm ploughed for not much more than £8k a year. Nice clean start , no messing with stale seed beds and hardly use roundup.
Why oh why is it seen as the devils work is beyond me.

Good post, without doubt in some situations it’s impossible to beat a plough based system

It’s not a religion, everyone has to do what works best for their circumstance