Wet Headlands.

[glasshouse]

My method of working was plough the middle, leave for 3 days to dry.
Power harrow the middle and ph drill half a day behind . Roll next day if sluggy
Plough headland, leave for a week
Drill
And just pray it doesnt rain too much
In very wet yrs it was plough----3 day wait-----
Rough power harrow------2 day wait-------combi drill-------- no rolling till emergence unless sluggy
About 8 yrs ago adopted min till and gave up organic
Far easier with roundup and discs, if dry enough to pull them

 

[snarling bee]

Ideally,I deep grub the endrigs a day or two before I sow the field.It gives the soil a bit of time to dry out before tramping it with the brutally heavy machinery we use for drilling.
Far too much weight on far too little rubber.

My method of working was plough the middle, leave for 3 days to dry.
Power harrow the middle and ph drill half a day behind . Roll next day if sluggy
Plough headland, leave for a week
Drill
And just pray it doesnt rain too much
In very wet yrs it was plough----3 day wait-----
Rough power harrow------2 day wait-------combi drill-------- no rolling till emergence unless sluggy
About 8 yrs ago adopted min till and gave up organic
Far easier with roundup and discs, if dry enough to pull them

Light/medium land farmers then!

It takes us a month of weathering to get a seedbed, we wouldn't 'deep grub' headlands just before we drill, or leave the headlands for another day unless forced to.
We have gone from drilling the headlands last (to remove challenger turning marks), to drilling first and removing the marks afterwards on the tramline. Hopefully an improvement next year with the arrival of a quadtrac. Importance of seed depth has driven this change with the amount of pre-ems we use for BG control.

 

[glasshouse]

Light/medium land farmers then!

It takes us a month of weathering to get a seedbed, we wouldn't 'deep grub' headlands just before we drill, or leave the headlands for another day unless forced to.
We have gone from drilling the headlands last (to remove challenger turning marks), to drilling first and removing the marks afterwards on the tramline. Hopefully an improvement next year with the arrival of a quadtrac. Importance of seed depth has driven this change with the amount of pre-ems we use for BG control.

Er no clay cap the heaviest stuff imaginable.
You had to catch it as it dried or forget it till spring.
If it dried out it was impossible, blue mould killed the seed

 

[Mr Charisma]

Er no clay cap the heaviest stuff imaginable.
You had to catch it as it dried or forget it till spring.
If it dried out it was impossible, blue mould killed the seed

I think the bit that Snarling Bee was alluding to was the 3 days between ploughing and power harrowing ,,,,,,, if we did that on tough stuff you would just modge it all together and look a disaster in the face ,,,,,, the clay land farmers around me if they have to plough would not be able to touch their ground for near on 2 weeks in a dampish year and most would not expect to touch it for a month . , if it was a wet year then they wouldn't be able to plough full stop ,,,,, or not plough well enough to be worth the expense of growing a crop

 

[fudge]

Mmmm let me see can I contribute to this debate? Ah yes my headlands are dry because I'm a clever bugger! Luck with the weather plays no part whatsoever. If only other farmers had my ability productivity would be improved across the whole industry.

 

[Lincsman]

Go back to a massey 30 drill with harrows behind.

 

[Cab-over Pete]

Mmmm let me see can I contribute to this debate? Ah yes my headlands are dry because I'm a clever bugger! Luck with the weather plays no part whatsoever. If only other farmers had my ability productivity would be improved across the whole industry.

??

 

[glasshouse]

Piggy back drills and 5 furtow reversible mounted ploughs have knackered lots of headlands
Semi mounted much less axle weight

 

[fudge]

??

I know I shouldn't say stuff like that, but really it comes down to the weather. I like to plough early purely because it gives the land time to dry then weather. The subsequent cultivation is a very heavy press which shouldn't be used unless the soil is dry enough. We then drill with a rapid, on a small scale I can be very choosey about drilling days. Even so it is very weather dependent.

I will say on silty clay power harrows are very damaging on a wet day, I don't have one.