Wet conditions direct drilling option

Roy_H

Member
Been putting this together for use in case this rain doesn’t stop and it remains to wet f a disc drill here

View attachment 838440View attachment 838441View attachment 838442

this is our low disturbance converted Co6 we had already with the existing trailed seed and liquid fert cart dropped off, drawbar modified to connect directly to the tractor and an old DF1 hopper on the front linkage

Still a bit of refinement to be done yet but think it will work. ?
I can imagine it would have to be pretty dry on top though or all those rubber tyres will become progressively bigger and bigger and bigger.
 

KB6930

Member
Location
Borders
Can someone educate me please in how something like this horsch drill can put seed into all types of ground I can see how it'll work with soft wet ground but how can it put it away in hard baked dry ground ? I'm a plough and sumo kinda guy
 

Matt L

Member
Trade
Location
Suffolk
Can someone educate me please in how something like this horsch drill can put seed into all types of ground I can see how it'll work with soft wet ground but how can it put it away in hard baked dry ground ? I'm a plough and sumo kinda guy
The co or the avatar?
 

Clive

Staff Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lichfield
Can someone educate me please in how something like this horsch drill can put seed into all types of ground I can see how it'll work with soft wet ground but how can it put it away in hard baked dry ground ? I'm a plough and sumo kinda guy

weight transfer - you can transfer the weight of the hoppers the toolbar and get over 250kg per coulter to get it in on the Avatar

on the CO the weight of the tractor (or hopper when using the seed cart) can be transferred to the toolbar frame - that what the ram on top pf the drawbar does
 

Clive

Staff Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lichfield
Impressive stuff.
What makes the modified co drill more of a wet weather drill than that?


weight basically - if you take the weight off the toolbar like we do when it's wet the hopper / drill / tractor puts a lot of weight over the wheelings which makes a mess, Also a disc tends to smear very wet soil more than a tine on our soils

That said the Avatar has gone a LOT better today than I expected and on our 12m CFT system I think I'm preferring keeping and weight/wheeling damage on 12m rather than 6m
 

Speedstar

Member
Location
Scottish Borders
weight transfer - you can transfer the weight of the hoppers the toolbar and get over 250kg per coulter to get it in on the Avatar

on the CO the weight of the tractor (or hopper when using the seed cart) can be transferred to the toolbar frame - that what the ram on top pf the drawbar does
What is a good days drill for your set ,if everything is right
 

Clive

Staff Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lichfield
I can imagine it would have to be pretty dry on top though or all those rubber tyres will become progressively bigger and bigger and bigger.

no so big an issue on green covers and stubbles tyres run fairly clean but yes it is ultimately the limit I guess
 

Clive

Staff Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lichfield
What is a good days drill for your set ,if everything is right

I will tell you when we have a good day ! not had the avatar long enough yet, today is its first day in wheat!

In theory, the 12m should be able to put 250ac and the 6m about 100ac without breaking too much of a sweat or working daft hours

only the 12m going at the moment though, our 2nd tractor / driver busy on seed logistics etc
 

KB6930

Member
Location
Borders
weight transfer - you can transfer the weight of the hoppers the toolbar and get over 250kg per coulter to get it in on the Avatar

on the CO the weight of the tractor (or hopper when using the seed cart) can be transferred to the toolbar frame - that what the ram on top pf the drawbar does
I was thinking the avatar I'm just surprised that with as little pressure as that you can get a consistent seed depth with no cultivation
 

Clive

Staff Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lichfield
Fair enough I'm just going off the fact that I've seen the disc on the back of the plough holding it out in a dry season but fair play if it's gonna work for you


In REALLY hard dry conditions or on heavy clay soils, it can be a problem in zerotill - machines like the cross slot / novag are very good in such situations with straight rather than angled disc and even more weight per coulter possible

right now though weight is the last thing we need
 

bravheart

Member
Location
scottish borders
I was thinking the avatar I'm just surprised that with as little pressure as that you can get a consistent seed depth with no cultivation
There’s a lot more too dd than he’s making out here, ctf etc., trouble is we’ve been hanging around here in the machinery thread to long, burning diesel and ignoring the dd threads. Hopefully we will be able to follow the progress of the crop just sown and the drills Performance overall.
 

Farmer Roy

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
NSW, Newstralya
err . . .

in true zero till, running a CTF system, retaining all your straw, keeping full groundcover & NOT f**king your soil up by cultivating it or driving all over it ( especially when its wet ) - you shouldn't have dry hard baked impenetrable soil . . .
and if you do - you probably shouldn't be planting anyway . . .

one of the challenges we sometimes face ( very deep, heavy black alluvial clay soils ) is after many years of zero till the soils become that soft & fluffy, if discs / gauge wheels even begin to look like picking up a bit of "mud" on them, everything stops turning as there isn't enough "strength" in the soil to force them to turn, they just tend to bulldoze through the soft soil instead. We have to be careful we don’t have too much down pressure on the row units . . .

it is noticeably different in firmer, compacted soils . . .
 
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Farmer Roy

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
NSW, Newstralya
I don't care if your soil is sand, loam or clay . . .

the main factors causing "hard dry baked impenetrable" soils are the same

- over cultivation
- wheel traffic
- lack of ground cover
- lack of soil carbon / organic matter
- lack of active soil biology ( which is caused by all of the above, as well as fungicide, insecticide & high rates of N fert, among many others )

look after those 5 basic principles of soil health & see the difference
 
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quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

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