Feldspar
Member
- Location
- Essex, Cambs and Suffolk
The biggest problem I have found with our pseudo no-till crops is not so much that they plants don't do well once established (although 2nd wheats have this a bit). It's more getting enough of them established in the first place.
For example, I have Siskin after OSR. The fields were Terrastarred twice and then rolled. Drilling took place in pretty ideal conditions. I remember thinking that it won't get much better than this with respect to soil and weather conditions at the time. We drilled at 160 kg/ha in early October. Not a stupidly high seed rate, but not silly low either, and we thought the conditions were good.
Despite the Terrastaring there was still quite a lot of trash on the surface. Because of the dry summer the Terrstar had not moved much soil in some areas. These areas are now definitely too thin. The headlands are fine, and so are areas where the Terrastar moved more soil. But the trash stuffed in the slots lead to incomplete slot closure and poor seed to soil contact which let the slugs in. We tried very hard to stop the slugs (pellets with drill, two or three lots afterwards, Deter treated, and even tried that Breakthru stuff too). In this case I do blame the low disturbance drilling system. We have other field which we put the maschio through before drilling and these are much better and we used at least half the amount of slug pellets.
This sort of effect can be seen through most of the lowest disturbance crops: the beans, the spring barley, winter barley and the second wheat. Some bits of the field are fine, but there are enough gaps that it will quite significantly knock the yield relative to what it could have been. In some cases there are whole patches of the field which are a problem. A higher seed rate probably won't cure these, but I'm more concerned with the general gappy nature of the crop. You can see that in our earlier 2nd wheats which were truely zero-tilled. Some patches are fine, but then 50cm there is a patch, then a good bit for 50cm or so, and so on. One solution is just to cultivate more (I think raking would just smash the straw flat, but we could try some), but I'd like to find another one.
One thought is just to very significantly increase the seed rate. So instead of drilling at 180 kg/ha at the beginning of October, maybe drill at 270 kg/ha say. The problem may be here is if the establishment losses turn out to be low then we could end up with some very thick areas of crop. With this sort of seed rate, and high % establishment, do you think we could end up seriously hitting yield by the crop being too thick? I am thinking now of a phrase one agronomist I speak to used: "You can more easily do something with a too thick crop that you can with a too thin crop". I think I tend to agree.
For example, I have Siskin after OSR. The fields were Terrastarred twice and then rolled. Drilling took place in pretty ideal conditions. I remember thinking that it won't get much better than this with respect to soil and weather conditions at the time. We drilled at 160 kg/ha in early October. Not a stupidly high seed rate, but not silly low either, and we thought the conditions were good.
Despite the Terrastaring there was still quite a lot of trash on the surface. Because of the dry summer the Terrstar had not moved much soil in some areas. These areas are now definitely too thin. The headlands are fine, and so are areas where the Terrastar moved more soil. But the trash stuffed in the slots lead to incomplete slot closure and poor seed to soil contact which let the slugs in. We tried very hard to stop the slugs (pellets with drill, two or three lots afterwards, Deter treated, and even tried that Breakthru stuff too). In this case I do blame the low disturbance drilling system. We have other field which we put the maschio through before drilling and these are much better and we used at least half the amount of slug pellets.
This sort of effect can be seen through most of the lowest disturbance crops: the beans, the spring barley, winter barley and the second wheat. Some bits of the field are fine, but there are enough gaps that it will quite significantly knock the yield relative to what it could have been. In some cases there are whole patches of the field which are a problem. A higher seed rate probably won't cure these, but I'm more concerned with the general gappy nature of the crop. You can see that in our earlier 2nd wheats which were truely zero-tilled. Some patches are fine, but then 50cm there is a patch, then a good bit for 50cm or so, and so on. One solution is just to cultivate more (I think raking would just smash the straw flat, but we could try some), but I'd like to find another one.
One thought is just to very significantly increase the seed rate. So instead of drilling at 180 kg/ha at the beginning of October, maybe drill at 270 kg/ha say. The problem may be here is if the establishment losses turn out to be low then we could end up with some very thick areas of crop. With this sort of seed rate, and high % establishment, do you think we could end up seriously hitting yield by the crop being too thick? I am thinking now of a phrase one agronomist I speak to used: "You can more easily do something with a too thick crop that you can with a too thin crop". I think I tend to agree.
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