What are the benefits of no-till farming?

[Two Tone]

I’m trying No-TIL for the first time on this farm this year.
It has often struck me that some years, the land is in such good condition that I wondered why I want to bury it with the plough. But the answer was because of Blackgrass control.
Having totally messed the farm up With BG when we switched to Min-TIL 10 years ago, it has taken a few years of ploughing to get it under manageable control and I am now confident that we should give No-TIL a go, but using a drill that achieves the minimum amount of soil movement to do so. Hence in our case, a Weaving GD.
The conditions for drilling were as good as they could possibly be and I am chuffed to bits the way it has/is all emerging so far.

My only worry at the moment after the very wet weather last weekend is slugs on the heaviest bits. However, the slots have all closed nicely and although we can see slugs on the surface, we haven’t found any hollowed out seeds other than the odd bit that is on the surface. No doubt though that we will apply pellets in the next day or two. Whereas the plough and combi’d land we will struggle to travel even with a quad-bike until it has dried out!

There is a lot to learn about No-TIL and a huge incentive is that it will be rewarded with ELMS.
One thing that struck me straight away, was that even after the deluge we had last weekend, not touching the land with any form of cultivation would have allowed a resumption of drilling far, far sooner (if I had anything left to drill, that is!).
I can see the huge value of the previous crop’s stubble roots in acting to drain surface water away and not having added too much air into the soil profile that will become a pudding after huge rainfall events.

One thing that worried me was putting muck on any of the fields that are DD’d. There is absolutely nothing to worry about here if you get it on early, in good dry conditions and can spread it finely enough.

In conclusion:
So far - so good!
Where is the catch?

 

[ajd132]

what else is there to know? the drill should put it straight in, weed control?

The more you get into it the more there is to learn. You are looking at a completely different system trying to work the the soil biology and pool of nutrition.

 

[ollie989898]

There are basically no drawbacks although the drills can be expensive (not all of them), your neighbours might laugh at you and you might wonder why the heck you didn't do it sooner.

You do need to be sensible regarding when you choose to drill, however. If the land turns wet and stays wet then in all honesty you might be better off saying fudge it we will drill something in spring. If you have a plough and other stuff lying around the temptation is to do something.

The people I know who have adopted no till have not gone back. The big savings in labour, time and diesel let alone the cost of wearing parts mean you get the choice of when to drill. Not all of them have adopted cover crops however. Some also still grow maize or do other things which would not be fully no till.

 

[Two Tone]

There are basically no drawbacks although the drills can be expensive (not all of them), your neighbours might laugh at you and you might wonder why the heck you didn't do it sooner.

You do need to be sensible regarding when you choose to drill, however. If the land turns wet and stays wet then in all honesty you might be better off saying fudge it we will drill something in spring. If you have a plough and other stuff lying around the temptation is to do something.

The people I know who have adopted no till have not gone back. The big savings in labour, time and diesel let alone the cost of wearing parts mean you get the choice of when to drill. Not all of them have adopted cover crops however. Some also still grow maize or do other things which would not be fully no till.

I’m a bit nervous about cover-crops and tbh, this year there just wasn’t time.
I DD drilled linseed in late August into W Barley stubbles and Wheat into what was originally OSR, which mostly got replaced with Spring Oat stubbles. All the stubbles greened up with mostly BL weed, especially Fools Parsley and one hell of a lot of Volunteer S Oats that shed in the winds, before the Combine could get to it. So much so that having Roundup’d it off 10 days before drilling, I had to add another litre with the pre-em!

Once I have actually experienced the cost savings of DD, (i.e. maybe next year, when this years savings will have actually materialised in the Bank Account) I might be tempted to use cover-crops.
But I don’t fancy having to drill each field twice to get one cash crop. Broadcasting something sounds a lot more attractive if you can be certain a rain will get them established.

How about one of those kits that does so from a Combine header? Is it an Auto-cast?
My problem is that I have given up growing OSR, which would have been a cheap and ideal cover-crop and I don’t know if linseed would work as well.
Having said that, It seemed to work on Harry’s Farm.

I used to hate seeing Fools Parsley in the stubbles, but now maybe not so!
One thing though: It seems to take forever for Roundup to kill it and I did add a very small sniff of a 24D type grassland herbicide to some fields to get it gone. Maybe unnecessarily as it turned out, as the earlier fields Roundup’d without did get it in the end.

Another thing I noticed when drilling Linseed was that there was a patch of Couch/Onion Couch that didn’t seem to be dying and I nearly went and got the sprayer to give it some more Roundup.
Needn’t have worried - it did die in the end!

I understand the theory of land not wanting to be “Bare” and wanting to grow something all year round, hence cover-crops. But we really aren’t talking of long at all and at a time of year when things often don’t want to grow due to lack of moisture anyway.
Unless you are utterly convinced that late drilling will help with your Blackgrass control (and I am far from being so!) why bother?

 

[ollie989898]

I’m a bit nervous about cover-crops and tbh, this year there just wasn’t time.
I DD drilled linseed in late August into W Barley stubbles and Wheat into what was originally OSR, which mostly got replaced with Spring Oat stubbles. All the stubbles greened up with mostly BL weed, especially Fools Parsley and one hell of a lot of Volunteer S Oats that shed in the winds, before the Combine could get to it. So much so that having Roundup’d it off 10 days before drilling, I had to add another litre with the pre-em!

Once I have actually experienced the cost savings of DD, (i.e. maybe next year, when this years savings will have actually materialised in the Bank Account) I might be tempted to use cover-crops.
But I don’t fancy having to drill each field twice to get one cash crop. Broadcasting something sounds a lot more attractive if you can be certain a rain will get them established.

How about one of those kits that does so from a Combine header? Is it an Auto-cast?
My problem is that I have given up growing OSR, which would have been a cheap and ideal cover-crop and I don’t know if linseed would work as well.
Having said that, It seemed to work on Harry’s Farm.

I used to hate seeing Fools Parsley in the stubbles, but now maybe not so!
One thing though: It seems to take forever for Roundup to kill it and I did add a very small sniff of a 24D type grassland herbicide to some fields to get it gone. Maybe unnecessarily as it turned out, as the earlier fields Roundup’d without did get it in the end.

Another thing I noticed when drilling Linseed was that there was a patch of Couch/Onion Couch that didn’t seem to be dying and I nearly went and got the sprayer to give it some more Roundup.
Needn’t have worried - it did die in the end!

I understand the theory of land not wanting to be “Bare” and wanting to grow something all year round, hence cover-crops. But we really aren’t talking of long at all and at a time of year when things often don’t want to grow due to lack of moisture anyway.
Unless you are utterly convinced that late drilling will help with your Blackgrass control (and I am far from being so!) why bother?

Long term, blackgrass is going to be something that you will have to tackle with stale seed beds and rotations, along with the timely use of spring crops. Make use of glyphosate whilst it is about. For broadleaved weeds in stubbles Kyleo (plus appropriate adjuvant) might be worth looking at but remember it has some restrictions of it's own regarding timing and following crops.

 

[Two Tone]

Long term, blackgrass is going to be something that you will have to tackle with stale seed beds and rotations, along with the timely use of spring crops. Make use of glyphosate whilst it is about. For broadleaved weeds in stubbles Kyleo (plus appropriate adjuvant) might be worth looking at but remember it has some restrictions of it's own regarding timing and following crops.

Unfortunately:
Been there
Done that
T shirt fell to pieces having been washed too many times!

BG under control again here after a few years of reverting back to the plough. The idea with my DD is get a flush between harvest and then get it with the other weeds with Roundup, pre drilling (if it germinates).
I don’t want to disturb any BG seed when drilling.

Spring crops are usually a complete waste of time here.

But a sensible rotation and tall crops definitely do help. Hybrid Winter Barley features well here. There is also a good range of products that help with the Linseed too.

 

[ajd132]

Unfortunately:
Been there
Done that
T shirt fell to pieces having been washed too many times!

BG under control again here after a few years of reverting back to the plough. The idea with my DD is get a flush between harvest and then get it with the other weeds with Roundup, pre drilling (if it germinates).
I don’t want to disturb any BG seed when drilling.

Spring crops are usually a complete waste of time here.

But a sensible rotation and tall crops definitely do help. Hybrid Winter Barley features well here. There is also a good range of products that help with the Linseed too.

I appear to have gone back to more winter crops. With no till leaving all the seed on the surface much easier to control with stuff like kerb in beans and osr (niab trials to prove it) got some winter linseed aswell. Winter barley which is cooperative. Spring crops have done well for us here but I would rather drill in the autumn if I can

 

[Kiwi Pete]

We showed an operating profit of about £1100/ha and only sold 11 cattle for the financial year just gone

how did you achieve this?

Grazing! Loving the monthly cheques

 

[yellow belly]

the down sides

are the same as other systems when you get it wrong
timeing is important
in the autumn early drilling is essential ,so earlier than you would do if it was ploughed
here when we started early drilling with min till in the 1970s september 30 was completion date

now with notill 30 september is my target unless the weather forecast looks relably dry 2018 or 2011
other areas and soil types could be a week or so later
we have soil that takes 7 days to dry enough once it is wet whatever the system
forcing it always ends badly unless it turns dry for several weeks ,when waiting also works well

the biggest other downside is that the crops never look as good till may
so if looks and beauty are inportant to you notill is not your thing
leave hedges bigger although this fails when every one can see from the top of a motorway bridge
drill perpendicular to the road as looking down the row always looks better
looking across the rows always looks poor till the crop is well above the stubble

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Grazing! Loving the monthly cheques

Also, Matthew 13:30-32 says it better than me.

Don't focus on what you don't want, manage for what you do want

 

[Two Tone]

the down sides

are the same as other systems when you get it wrong
timeing is important
in the autumn early drilling is essential ,so earlier than you would do if it was ploughed
here when we started early drilling with min till in the 1970s september 30 was completion date

now with notill 30 september is my target unless the weather forecast looks relably dry 2018 or 2011
other areas and soil types could be a week or so later
we have soil that takes 7 days to dry enough once it is wet whatever the system
forcing it always ends badly unless it turns dry for several weeks ,when waiting also works well

the biggest other downside is that the crops never look as good till may
so if looks and beauty are inportant to you notill is not your thing
leave hedges bigger although this fails when every one can see from the top of a motorway bridge
drill perpendicular to the road as looking down the row always looks better
looking across the rows always looks poor till the crop is well above the stubble

I’ve been stunned by how our No-till crops all emerge the same day and very uniformly, compared to our ploughed and combi’d fields.

 

[ollie989898]

I’ve been stunned by how our No-till crops all emerge the same day and very uniformly, compared to our ploughed and combi’d fields.

I've had claydon'ed crops that look a bit dodgy all winter but they usually delivered the goods. You have to recaliberate what a seed bed and emerged crop looks like.

 

[pear]

Following on from what @yellow belly said about being drilled up by a certain date (weather depending), are most people drilled up?

 

[moretimeforgolf]

Following on from what @yellow belly said about being drilled up by a certain date (weather depending), are most people drilled up?

Only drilled rye so far. Plan to start on wheat at the next opportunity. We started direct drilling in 2013, so far we have got all planned autumn cereals drilled by the end of October each year. My main headache is getting enough decent spray days to get the glyphosate on.

 

[Two Tone]

Following on from what @yellow belly said about being drilled up by a certain date (weather depending), are most people drilled up?

We finished here on Saturday 26 Sept and I'd say that 75% is drilled up around here by others.
Good job too, because nothing is going to move for another week after last weekend's deluge!
Even trying to DD it now would be forcing it far too much.

 

[martian]

Following on from what @yellow belly said about being drilled up by a certain date (weather depending), are most people drilled up?

We've modified the 2 week rule that yellow belly referred to above (a fortnight earlier than conventional in the autumn, a fortnight later in the spring) as our soils have become much kinder, allowing us to get drilling relatively quickly after heavy rain. One of the reasons for observing the original rule is that no-till crops don't get that flush of nutrients that come from disturbed soil as it breaks down, so they need to get planted earlier in the autumn. After ten years no-till, it seems that there's now enough spare 'oomph' in the soil to get the seeds away, so we thought we could take advantage of more blackgrass, volunteers etc germinating before the pre/peri/post drilling glyphosate spray.

So, to answer your question, we aren't drilled up: still got a bit of wheat to go, all the oats and beans. The ground is walking quite nicely already, even after the 3 inches of rain we've had in the last couple of weeks or so, so we're not too bothered. How are you getting on @pear ?

 

[sjt01]

Following on from what @yellow belly said about being drilled up by a certain date (weather depending), are most people drilled up?

Should finish W Barley today, still have some cover crop trials to go in, and some grazing ley. All going in behind maize so drilled at the earliest possible date. With 12 mm more rain due overnight, and more in the following 10 days, there may be some seed left in the shed.
Bean seed not yet delivered - they say they are waiting to get germination tests

 

[pear]

We've modified the 2 week rule that yellow belly referred to above (a fortnight earlier than conventional in the autumn, a fortnight later in the spring) as our soils have become much kinder, allowing us to get drilling relatively quickly after heavy rain. One of the reasons for observing the original rule is that no-till crops don't get that flush of nutrients that come from disturbed soil as it breaks down, so they need to get planted earlier in the autumn. After ten years no-till, it seems that there's now enough spare 'oomph' in the soil to get the seeds away, so we thought we could take advantage of more blackgrass, volunteers etc germinating before the pre/peri/post drilling glyphosate spray.

So, to answer your question, we aren't drilled up: still got a bit of wheat to go, all the oats and beans. The ground is walking quite nicely already, even after the 3 inches of rain we've had in the last couple of weeks or so, so we're not too bothered. How are you getting on @pear ?

I havent started yet! The fear of getting caught out again is playing on my mind! I missed a few drilling days before the rain due to TB testing and then finishing up some late cut silage. A few good drying days should get me going again. Most of the ground is 6 yrs direct Simtech'd so its taking the rain better than it would have done previously.

 

[Dockers]

Finished wheat sowing here on 12th. Sept. Have been early sowing for the last 20 years without any problems. Got caught out badly in autumn 2000, never again. Still love the Seedhawk.