What converted you to DD?

[Badshot]

In my case it was seeing @strip-till-phil 's pics on BFF, that and the many daft threads I started about wanting a claydon drill, which resulted in some very sound advice being given to me by many long standing contributers (who I won't try to name, but I am sure you know who you are). Also going round a few localish farms and being astounded by what I saw had a huge impact, seeing crops that made mine look poor made me think, a lot!!!

Now I no longer want to be converted to a claydon I am afraid, reason? I have been drilling the last two days into some very nice seedbeds that have rivalled anything I ever managed under cultivation, and bettered most of them, this is the third year in a row these fields have been DD'd, and seem to be getting better all the time.

Most likely I will keep updateing my KV, it just works for some reason.

 

[Clive]

Basically I was never any good at ploughing ! Tried it once aged circa 16 seemed very slow and my driving in straight lines was very poor ! 15 years of mintill latter I was converted by a 609hp Cat challenger with a thirst for 100plus L/hr and a 26k wearing metal bill in 4 weeks !

I recall sitting waiting on a headland with the second fuel bowser full of the day watching this monster dragging a solo along all to make a tiny rape seed grow and thinking how ridiculous "min till" had got

I had messed about with zerotill previously, even had a CS here to try a field of osr in 2006 but never with the education behind me needed to understand properly what I was really doing and with naivety that it was all about machinery and nothing else needed to change. I had always left establishment to others as it wasn't really my interest and went ignored by me as my skills were all sprayers and harvesting and I was never much of an ace tractor driver.

A previous couple of years with a Claydon v drill shared with Lee had at least demonstrated to me that on our soils there was certainly no penalty in direct drilling despite it not working out for Lee but this time I wanted to go further and cut right down to what was needed, good as it was I had seen flaws with the early Claydon like trash flow and consolidation so knew what needed improvement, Looking back at this http://www.farmersguardian.com/taking-one-step-back-to-hopefully-move-forwards/24632.article. I can see my thoughts at the time were certainly less than clear !

I dragged my main tractor driver and father down to see @Simon Chiles who kindly showed me around his farm, by the time we had left we had bought his drill ! I guess ultimately it was the Internet and forums that put me in touch with people like Simon who kindly gave me the education I needed, that invaluable transfer of information also became the reason I became passionate that more should be done to help other farmers share such information as it was soon apparent to me there was little commercial or independent research that was going to forward the technique, www.750a.co.uk www.directdriller.com and ultimately TFF was the result of that

The rest is rather well documented history !

 

[DrWazzock]

Lack of time to do it the hard way.
Wind erosion and nutrient leaching causing failures when ploughing.
Helpful advice and encouragement on here particularly from the late Elmsted.

 

[Rob Holmes]

The old man said once "Why do we spend so much time and diesel to make a nice seedbed, and then plough it in?" Got us both thinking.....

 

[franklin]

Watching a 45ac field of OSR fail after spending £££ on moving the soil, only to see the field next door that we chanced going straight into with the drill and using up some seed thrive and yield perfectly fine. Wont say I am converted, but certainly in conversion.

 

[Richard III]

I saw a press release in the yellow comic for the the new Claydon SR drill and thought 'what a good idea', but thankfully rather than ring Claydon's I started researching on the internet first. A trip to the first No Till Alliance day at @Simon C 's farm convinced me as soon as I walked across one of his fields. I then went out and bought a Moore for £3000, as the late Elmstead was regularly advising people to do at the time. This was soon joined by a Simtec that cost slightly more.

It all felt quite strange at first, but now feels very odd walking across a cultivated field. The most frustrating thing is how many hours of my life were spent crawling up and down a field on a power harrow drill, when I now get a much better seedbed by doing nothing at all.

 

[Badshot]

I saw a press release in the yellow comic for the the new Claydon SR drill and thought 'what a good idea', but thankfully rather than ring Claydon's I started researching on the internet first. A trip to the first No Till Alliance day at @Simon C 's farm convinced me as soon as I walked across one of his fields. I then went out and bought a Moore for £3000, as the late Elmstead was regularly advising people to do at the time. This was soon joined by a Simtec that cost slightly more.

It all felt quite strange at first, but now feels very odd walking across a cultivated field. The most frustrating thing is how many hours of my life were spent crawling up and down a field on a power harrow drill, when I now get a much better seedbed by doing nothing at all.

Been thinking about that myself today while looking behind me drilling, going nicely and literally saying to myself what a waste of time half my working life had been up to now.

 

[B&B Pig Man]

I'm one of the newest converts on here I think....... for me there was a couple of reasons to buy the Mzuri.

I already had in my head what I'd like to do on my soils, subsoil then drill was working well, but trash flow was a huge problem in anything but perfect conditions.
That system had left me stranded due to the weather a few times - relying on the weather to work the land for you turned out to be a very risky business.
So I set about a drill hunt to cope.
I very nearly went down the subsoil then combidrill route.
The attraction of getting it all done in one pass was just too tempting in the end.
Land is either drilled or it's not - and its a relatively fast one job process.

Starting out with the pigs meant my time had become a bit more precious - sitting on a tractor for hours on end preparing ground was helping my time management!

 

[Johndeere]

The farming forum helped convert me and again @striptillphil had a part to play. It has also helped open doors to work with sumo. Now we have soils in better condition which has me considering no till with cover cropping, can't underestimate the knowledge on this forum has helped change the way I establish crops, so thanks everyone

 

[Old John]

Had a eureka moment around 1999. Everybody investing in rubber track layers etc. could not justify that sort of expense. Looking down at last years seedbed amongst stubble and thought what could be better than that? Then thought our cousins across the pond do nothing, why do we? Hired in an Amazone Primera and did about one third of wheat, one third min till and one third plough and there was no difference. Made our own drill as could not afford or pull Amazone at the time. Did some dd and some min till. Made mistakes which we have learnt by I hope and now dd all clay soils last three years. Yields are better now than before. Would not plough again if at all possible, life's too short.

 

[farmideas]

Can I be a convert without any land to farm? My conversion came after seeing this U Tube

a couple of years ago. It sent a shiver down my back. Here was I writing and publishing a magazine that has the aim of helping cut costs. I had to get involved. Since then, with the help of so many TFF members, led by Clive, I have learned, and there's nothing like writing to force the ideas into straight lines. I'm really very grateful to everyone. I now know what it feels like to be a missionary - no, not that sort!!!

 

[BSH]

A journey that started with a quest for greater knowledge about soils and how to improve them that led to learning about direct drilling and cover cropping. A conversation with soil scientist Liz Stockdale finally made my mind up for me and I dropped organic grassland farming for biological mixed farming incorporating direct drilling. I saw this as a way for me to stay farming my small farm and make a margin whilst pursuing what had become a passion. With a huge amount of information gleaned from many of the contributors on here and plenty of encouragement, I made the change and have been very happy with my decision.

 

[Tomjoad]

Who on TFF can lay claim to being among the earliest no-tillers in the UK?

 

[Jim Bullock]

Who on TFF can lay claim to being among the earliest no-tillers in the UK?

My father did the first direct-drilling on our farm in 1967, but the kit he tried was very slow (Howard Rotaseeder) so he reverted to min-till (with straw burnt) In the late seventies/early eighties we use to use a local contractor with a Bettinson disc drill or hire in a Gibbs tined drill. We reverted to ploughing after the straw burning ban as none of the drills available could deal with chopped straw. But we started direct-drilling again in 1997/8 when John Deere had some 750's available for hire.. and I had seen what they could do on a trip to the US... But after nearly 47 years experience we still don't get it right!! Back in 1967 my father said success or failure depended on the weather and it still does today.

 

[KennyO]

Had a eureka moment around 1999. Everybody investing in rubber track layers etc. could not justify that sort of expense. Looking down at last years seedbed amongst stubble and thought what could be better than that? Then thought our cousins across the pond do nothing, why do we? Hired in an Amazone Primera and did about one third of wheat, one third min till and one third plough and there was no difference. Made our own drill as could not afford or pull Amazone at the time. Did some dd and some min till. Made mistakes which we have learnt by I hope and now dd all clay soils last three years. Yields are better now than before. Would not plough again if at all possible, life's too short.

Sorry if you've done it before but would be interested to see pics of your home made drill.

 

[martian]

My conversion happened when I was visited by an archangel, clad in raiment of gleaming green.

Long term forum readers will guess how the garment was cut...

 

[Richard III]

I'm going to show my age now, on threads like this I often think of the Blues Brothers film and the

"Do you see the light"

"Yes I see the light"

Sketch.

 

[Old John]

Sorry if you've done it before but would be interested to see pics of your home made drill.

Our home made drill now resides about 50 miles from me with a friend of mine. I'll try to remember to get some pics when I go there. Major problem to us was that it is 4 metres wide and trailed and our land is a bit spread out along some narrow roads so transport difficult.

 

[yellow belly]

all the above reasons

dd used to work when straw burning was allowed especially for rape establishment
the disc drills around now have overcome many of the problems that not burning caused

in 2012 not being able to cultivate soils in the autumn forced no till drilling with disc drill in the spring and a harvest on 95% of the farm

 

[Old John]

Sorry if you've done it before but would be interested to see pics of your home made drill.

Sorry if you've done it before but would be interested to see pics of your home made drill.

Had lunch with my pal today and visited our old drill. Can't really see our tungsten points as they have sunk into the dirt floor but they have about 15 degree angle both forward and sideways to make penetration easy but not throw soil too much and the side tilt means there is positive closure of the slot. My friend has planted his OSR with it this year and will be planting beans soon.