Using high seed rates to make no-till work on heavier soil?

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.
 
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This shows the effect of double drilling in our late drilled 2nd wheat. Most of this field is reasonably pathetic, but this was obviously one bit that for some reason was drilled twice. At the time we were drilling at 240 kg/ha having purposely upped the rate. As it was that was a reasonably high rate we thought, but given the end result it did not produce anywhere near enough established plants. This strip on the right would then have received 480 kg/ha of seed, and even then I wouldn't say it is over thick!

20170406_161023.jpg
 

Clive

Staff Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lichfield
my seed rates are generally higher under no till than they used to be, seed is a cheap input if you are farm saving

I really wouldn't grow 2nd wheats though - I don't believe it can be done consistently in a no-till system
 
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Clive

Staff Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lichfield
How much did you put your seed rates up by?

Are you not using your Horsch for 2nd wheats?

about 25% would about the average (other than OSR which hasn't changed)

we don't grow second wheat, it's simply not a no till crop IMO

Horsch used alongside 750a but is my preference for establishing cover crops and wheat after oats and also for OSR establishment - all higher trash white straw situations that are less than ideal for a disc IMO. &50a is the prefered choice into covers or after breaks. I use both drills in both situations however just to get workload complete , good timing over rules ALL else IMO
 
about 25% would about the average (other than OSR which hasn't changed)

we don't grow second wheat, it's simply not a no till crop IMO

Horsch used alongside 750a but is my preference for establishing cover crops and wheat after oats and also for OSR establishment - all higher trash white straw situations that are less than ideal for a disc IMO. &50a is the prefered choice into covers or after breaks. I use both drills in both situations however just to get workload complete , good timing over rules ALL else IMO

Are you growing any winter barley atm? How would you fit that into a no-till rotation?
 

Clive

Staff Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lichfield
Are you growing any winter barley atm? How would you fit that into a no-till rotation?

none this year but we do grow it, usually as a first cereal and follow it with OSR

have spring Barley on a contact farm this year, OSR will follow it

Horsch is without doubt MUCH better at consistent OSR establishment than the 750a from what I have seen so far, the 750a is a drill to avoid when drilling OSR, it can work if you get everything just so but why make life hard when a 8k tine drill can do the job instead !
 
none this year but we do grow it, usually as a first cereal and follow it with OSR

have spring Barley on a contact farm this year, OSR will follow it

Horsch is without doubt MUCH better at consistent OSR establishment than the 750a from what I have seen so far, the 750a is a drill to avoid when drilling OSR, it can work if you get everything just so but why make life hard when a 8k tine drill can do the job instead !

Don't intend to use 750a for OSR.

What would you do if wanting to put winter barley after winter wheat?

What is your current rotation / cropping split at the moment?
 

Clive

Staff Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lichfield
Don't intend to use 750a for OSR.

What would you do if wanting to put winter barley after winter wheat?

What is your current rotation / cropping split at the moment?

I would swap the straw for muck with a local beef yard and use the C0 to establish it ideally, would use the 750 as well but as second choice - in your situation I would use your claydon, a tine is usually always the better choice if you have access to one after a white straw crop

I dont have a rotation - its a very old fashioned concept ! I grow to the market and soil needs, this changes constantly
 
I would swap the straw for muck with a local beef yard and use the C0 to establish it ideally, would use the 750 as well but as second choice - in your situation I would use your claydon, a tine is usually always the better choice if you have access to one after a white straw crop

I dont have a rotation - its a very old fashioned concept ! I grow to the market and soil needs, this changes constantly

Well put it this way then, what is the % breakdown of the different crops you will have in the ground for this year?
 

Clive

Staff Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lichfield
Well put it this way then, what is the % breakdown of the different crops you will have in the ground for this year?

It changes every year, I have no lupins, winter barley or millet this year at all but had several hundred acres of each in previous years

this year we are 50% 1st milling winter wheat (the only real constant) 15% OSR (more than normal as I felt the market had upside) 5% spring barley (contract farm, customers wants it to feed) 7.5% spring oats, 10% winter beans 7.5%% spring beans 5 % linseed (when we plant it)

next year wil be completely different (ex the wheat !)
 

E_B

Member
Location
Norfolk
I know this is strip till, but this field of Reflection was drilled early with the Mzuri, can't remember the exact date but around about 12th September at 220kg/ha. Wheat after oats, straw removed. Not the heaviest of fields but has a few acres of tough clay and in general it can be tricky in a wet time (shows up wheelings etc). Didn't really tiller out early (perhaps someone would say because of the high seed rate, but more likely because of the previous heavy oats crop sucking out all the nutrients) and doesn't look like how you imagine a field that was drilled with a big seed rate early on. Also against conventional wisdom, it hasn't required a BG herbicide this Spring like usual, although that is probably more to do with the season than the seed rate. All our wheats were drilled in the first half of September, with at least 200kg/ha and none of them look ridiculously thick (or thin), so far very pleased with them. We'll be continuing with hefty seed rates, and playing with starter fert (0 24 24 etc), especially following on from heavy crops.

20170409_155622.jpg
 

Clive

Staff Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lichfield
we drill msot september wheat at 200kgs (tgw dependant) - increase to 250kgs in October

years ago when it was trendy we drilled most of our wheat at sub 100kgs and once did some at sub 50kgs - still yielded but cost a fortune to grow vs today
 

clbarclay

Member
Location
Worcestershire
@Clive Was it just the market this year that decided against growing millet and lupins this year or also agronomic?

The seed rates here had dipped for a while when mostly ploughing, but had risen again under non inversion till and have remain high with no till. WW tends to be around 180 to 200 kg/ha, planting farm saved SB at the moment with the unidrill flat out (225kg/ha), but that is as much for weed control than yeild this harvest.
 

Clive

Staff Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lichfield
@Clive Was it just the market this year that decided against growing millet and lupins this year or also agronomic?

The seed rates here had dipped for a while when mostly ploughing, but had risen again under non inversion till and have remain high with no till. WW tends to be around 180 to 200 kg/ha, planting farm saved SB at the moment with the unidrill flat out (225kg/ha), but that is as much for weed control than yeild this harvest.

bit of both, OSR, beans and Oats all looked more attractive when I was looking into my crystal ball and agronomically the spring land felt better suited to the crops chosen this year
 

York

Member
Location
D-Berlin
since we eliminated the small diameter seeds it's much better. quicker emergance, >3x the tillers at the same time.
We increased the sieve siese of the bottom sieve.
One client of mine only seeds seed >3mm diameter in small grain. Has good stands with 60 seeds/m2 & early seeding. Is experimenting with 30cm row spacing & 60 seeds m2. In several trials at field scale it worked well & delivered equal yield than normal routing = >7t/ha which is a normal yield in his region. He even got >9t/ha in Triticale & wheat.
York-Th.
 

bobk

Member
Location
stafford
my seed rates are generally higher under no till than they used to be, seed is a cheap input if you are farm saving

I really wouldn't grow 2nd wheats though - I don't believe it can be done consistently in a no-till system

We have also increased seed rates on an inversion system , if you haven't got the plants you can't make the yield.
 
Same effect again in winter beans. Double drilled area is just about thick enough. Rest of the field is too thin despite being drilled at 170 kg/ha. Neighbour's field of beans drilled into ploughed land look much better.

As a side note I really dislike beans. Have just sprayed for BLW and now will struggle to get Laser (or similar) on for the copious amounts of black grass.

The thought of putting grass in and renting it out to a sheep person seems more attractive than normal.

20170410_174754.jpg
 

bobk

Member
Location
stafford
Same effect again in winter beans. Double drilled area is just about thick enough. Rest of the field is too thin despite being drilled at 170 kg/ha. Neighbour's field of beans drilled into ploughed land look much better.

As a side note I really dislike beans. Have just sprayed for BLW and now will struggle to get Laser (or similar) on for the copious amounts of black grass.

The thought of putting grass in and renting it out to a sheep person seems more attractive than normal.

View attachment 499236

I accidentally clicked on your photo , It got worse .... sorry
 

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