What is "heavy" land?

[Dave6170]

@Will 1594 i remember you telling me about real heavy stuff that grew big crops. Sunk island or something??

 

[MrNoo]

Only farmers in Bedfordshire and Warwickshire are qualified to answer this although some south Essex come close.

I dont know, I've got some pretty evil stuff here, am due to try and plough some of it, will get some pictures. The heaviest field I am not even going to try to plough as I'd never get a seedbed out of it.
Surprised how "tight" even the light ground is after all this rain.

 

[Dave6170]

Thats what id call heavy

 

[teslacoils]

I'd say if you're ploughing now you either missed a lot of last winters shyte, or it isn't heavy.

 

[Will 1594]

@Will 1594 i remember you telling me about real heavy stuff that grew big crops. Sunk island or something??

Whay the marine silts , hell they are wet or have been , local beet man lifts a lot on heavy silts and marine clays , they finished thursday ,he said it should of had another week drying ,but factory shutting , used to deal with this stuff , get it worked dry and get it right , superb stuff , two catogorys cat sh!t or concrete.
what this stuff @Dave6170

 

[Two Tone]

Thats what id call heavyView attachment 865027

Coping with heavy land like this in that photo isn't the same problem as having stuff in the same field that is light, blowing sand within 50 yards of each other.
Having a system that can cope with both at the same time is another problem.

 

[Dave6170]

Whay the marine silts , hell they are wet or have been , local beet man lifts a lot on heavy silts and marine clays , they finished thursday ,he said it should of had another week drying ,but factory shutting , used to deal with this stuff , get it worked dry and get it right , superb stuff , two catogorys cat sh!t or concrete.
what this stuff @Dave6170

That must take some bashing into shape?!

 

[DrWazzock]

we have land that ploughs up like the OP, some maybe worse yellow stuff.

But weather works wonders breaking down heavy land ploughing. That’s if you can get it done early enough to allow the weather to work on it. Plough it too early though and if it rains a lot it slumps back to solid cack.
No amount of power harrowing will turn unweathered clay into a decent seedbed. You end up with putty marbles and no tilth.
Weathering and timing is everything with clay.

 

[Dave6170]

Coping with heavy land like this in that photo isn't the same problem as having stuff in the same field that is light, blowing sand within 50 yards of each other.
Having a system that can cope with both at the same time is another problem.

See the bottom of the furr is smearing in the photo? Thats what i ve always been told to avoid when ploughing. Sign its too wet. Making a pan roots cant get through

 

[DrWazzock]

Coping with heavy land like this in that photo isn't the same problem as having stuff in the same field that is light, blowing sand within 50 yards of each other.
Having a system that can cope with both at the same time is another problem.

we have exactly that problem. Cack at one end, talcum powder sand at the other. But power harrow is still most versatile tool after ploughing. Better than a nettle bed full of fixed tine/ disc one trick ponies.
Direct drilling sad unmoved clay in the spring here is not really a goer. Putty to concrete in a day. Hard semi closed tilthless slots aren’t the best start for a seed.

 

[DrWazzock]

See the bottom of the furr is smearing in the photo? Thats what i ve always been told to avoid when ploughing. Sign its too wet. Making a pan roots cant get through

wait till June then?

where we have fields with patches of clay we just have to crack on to get spring work done. There might well be some smearing and panning but 90 % of the field is ok.
If the entire field was clay I probably wouldn’t bother ploughing it at all in the spring here. Leave it till summer/autumn.

 

[wanton dwarf]

Some years ago I was rolling some land and the rolls were doing practically nothing despite being rolled 3 or 4 times. Basically just shuffling bricks.

Getting a bit pee'd off .. as some on here know happens on occassion .. I decided to try going round & round in circles moving a tractor length or so forward every circle.

The rotational sheer was brilliant .. there you go .. tip of the day .. all you need is plenty of sun to bake that boys land into a brick or two.

 

[Will 1594]

That must take some bashing into shape?!

Catch it right and have good structure and a bit of patience and a bit of wetting and drying can get it down to this . Same field Dave.

 

[Dave6170]

wait till June then?

Thats not me, just a random photo. Luckily we dont have anything like that

 

[DrWazzock]

Ploughing here three weeks ago. First picture heavy patch , doesn’t really show it properly. Second picture sand is 75% of field. It’s a compromise.

 

[jh.]

What do you use to make a seed bed out of it?
I have some ground like that which bakes hard if left too long and i stilll work it with a powerharrow but always interested how others work it.

We have some like the op .

For spring crops dad has always said it needs ploughed before Christmas. I used to think the damage we did trying to plough this early wasn't worth it but I've seen it over the years now , ploughed before Christmas is far better spring barley than any thing ploughed much later .

This winter has been hellish for it. Quite a bit of it still to plough but seems pointless now as it will struggle to do 2 ton a acre and we are just putting a stinker of a pan in it . It usually just dries out now and turns to type one.

Back when I used to collaborate with a neighbour a unipress for winter crops was a handy tool but it needed to go in sharp behind the plough while it still had some moisture to work with , leave it an extra day or so and it would just bounce along hardly doing much .

The best spring seed bed is pre Christmas ploughed and weather and don't rush into it in the spring but I'm tempted to try some min tilling on it now as feel it's too late to plough and leave the wet stink below . The surface has had a lot of weathering so I think a tine just to take out harvest wheelings , bit of a stir with discs and in with power harrow combi this year

 

[DrWazzock]

Some of the heavy land that we ran a stubble cultivator ( terra disc) over in the autumn is ready to drill now with no extra cultivation needed. Bit wet underneath maybe but top is friable. Untouched heavy land stubbles are solid cack.

 

[The Agrarian]

We have spots like the OP in nearly every field. And our average field size is about seven acres. Nearly all grass here. The problem is the light land isn't sandy. It's a silty loam that sticks to the wet boards like buggery. Off at every other headland with the spade if the conditions are ripe for it.

The weather is different here too. Always damp, so land like that at the moment is a no go area for walking on. Once it's ploughed though, two or three half decent days make a job of it.

 

[DrWazzock]

As always so many different soil types and techniques. A lifetime of learning on the place brings experience of what does and doesn’t work.

 

[Will 1594]

Some of the heavy land that we ran a stubble cultivator ( terra disc) over in the autumn is ready to drill now with no extra cultivation needed. Bit wet underneath maybe but top is friable. Untouched heavy land stubbles are solid cack.

Drilling some sticky nice lime stone loam at minute , it had disc press , and low disturbance subsoiler ,through it last september before any rain , ,top couple inch is lovely , ..bettr than next field of neighbours that was mullered with spuds ,and ploughed wet , its baked like concrete and had to pull it down to level and get a tilth , headlands dont look pretty ,but next door neighbour is impatient and wants it in , another couple days it would be better