What is your sowing system ?

[bobk]

Just a glimpse in to the favoured technique

 

[capfits]

Depends what is getting sown.
Spring Barley plough and combi drill.
Wheat after grass same.
Wheat after tatties min till if not been soaked
Stubble neeps min tilled combi drill

 

[Bald Rick]

Just a glimpse in to the favoured technique

I found flowers and chocolate worked

Now, washing up and listening (or pretending to)

 

[DrWazzock]

Wet and Ploughed : MF30
Dry and Ploughed or Direct : Moore Unidrill
Small seeds : Air seeder on front of power Harrow tractor.
If we didn’t have a significant amount of seriously cacky clay I’d go power Harrow combi straight behind the plough but here it seems to need special treatment before drilling : a couple of passes of PH on the clay : a good rolling on the sand and that’s not possible with a one pass combi, sadly.

 

[bobk]

As it won't let me tick more than 1 .

Predominantly plough and combi but we do have a sumo which does 2/300 acres a year out of 1200.
We've absolutely zero no till there's some locally and I think in our area /climate we're too far north to get reliable crops out of it .

You can now

 

[Brisel]

It was all strip till with the occasional min till. Thanks to blackgrass, the ploughs have been dusted off and a lot more tillage generally. Mix up the weed control strategy and fix the compaction caused by excessive rainfall and enforced fallows in wet springs.

I like @Bald Rick 's methods best though

 

[Farmer Roy]

EVERY crop

Harvest previous crop, as high as possible to leave maximum amount of straw / stubble residue.
Zero till / spray it until we have a full profile of soil moisture ( say 1 metre of moisture. Might be next week or next year ), then plant whatever crop is suitable for that season / time of year, directly into it with minimal soil disturbance
Repeat . . .

 

[DrWazzock]

It was all strip till with the occasional min till. Thanks to blackgrass, the ploughs have been dusted off and a lot more tillage generally. Mix up the weed control strategy and fix the compaction caused by excessive rainfall and enforced fallows in wet springs.

I like @Bald Rick 's methods best though

I don’t think I’ve cultivated/drilled using the same system for more than 2 years in a row lately due to weather/BG/failed OSR etc. We did have a five year run of fairly successful DD but have ploughed for two autumns now. Quite averse to min till here due to grass weed concerns. And ploughing needs less horsepower as the plough can work at less than full width of the tractor whereas min till needs to at least cover wheelings so requires more horsepower than we can justify especially for the poorer seedbed. DD is still my holy grail but it needs a whole system carefully managed long term approach and it’s difficult.

 

[KB6930]

Predominantly plough here mostly very light sandy land with some very sticky clay patches on hill tops etc .

So can plough and sow light stuff no bother sticky stuff needs a day and a half to two days between the plough and the combi or it'll turn like concrete in the right weather .
System works great for 2 people.

We sumo some as well and straight in with the combi .

Field in the pic is funny stuff it looks nice and light but give it a heavy shower and it goes very glue like !! Field over the hedge was pulled up with the sumo yesterday and us being drilled just now .

There will be quicker and probably cheaper ways to out it in but it works for us and can be done with 2 people and another doing a bit of rolling behind us

 

[Bury the Trash]

 

[robs1]

Nature has a very simple system, chuck enough on the ground and it grows. Perhaps we should think about that

 

[Jerry]

Nature has a very simple system, chuck enough on the ground and it grows. Perhaps we should think about that

Its very tempting.....would I be mad to work a field, spin on some wheat seed (untreated of course), lightly harrow and roll???

Agronomist would probably have a fit but it would be cheap and quick.

Bang up the seed rate a bit maybe..

 

[robs1]

Its very tempting.....would I be mad to work a field, spin on some wheat seed (untreated of course), lightly harrow and roll???

Agronomist would probably have a fit but it would be cheap and quick.

Bang up the seed rate a bit maybe..

When I first started growing a few acres I ploughed then worked it down with a cultivator and used our vicon fert spreader, harrowed and rolled , one year got caught out and missed the harrowing and rolling on half a field, couldn't see any difference

 

[bobk]

When I first started growing a few acres I ploughed then worked it down with a cultivator and used our vicon fert spreader, harrowed and rolled , one year got caught out and missed the harrowing and rolling on half a field, couldn't see any difference

Sown thousands of acres with a wag tail , it was quick but never enough depth for the seed

 

[davidroberts30]

Its very tempting.....would I be mad to work a field, spin on some wheat seed (untreated of course), lightly harrow and roll???

Agronomist would probably have a fit but it would be cheap and quick.

Bang up the seed rate a bit maybe..

I believe @Andy26 does a fair bit this way?

 

[Jsmith2211]

Direct drill anything that is relatively clean and level. Anything that has got too far away, rutted, bumpy and grass weed problems etc we've had to plough this year. Annoyingly I think we will be ploughing a fair bit of it this year. Just hope we can get a clean stubble for next year. Only bought the direct drill last year so naturally we want to use it as much as possible, big outlay on a peice of machinery just to go back to using the plough and old combi! Thinking we may have to think about changing the combi drill too as I dont think we will ever wholey replace it. If it's ploughed, its hard to beat a once over with a powerharrow then a powerharrow drill to get a good fine level seedbed! At the end of the day we need to establish the best crop possible, not get caught up in trying to always stick to one system when it maybe isnt right for the year. Having said that, on the lighter land that has done better this year and isnt swamped in grass weeds and ruts, the direct drilling does a lovely job. Hopefully be doing 90% DD eventually, from my point of view its a hell of a lot cheaper and quicker, and it keeps father happy with all his regenerative ideas

 

[Jsmith2211]

Should add that I would like to try to do some ploughing 1 year in 5 for blackgrass. Between that and our grass leys we ought to keep on top of it.

 

[bobk]

Tried min till once , never realised our fields could grow so much crap so quickly

 

[bobk]

Tried min till once , never realised our fields could grow so much crap so quickly

Problem is I hate ploughing , sooo boring and hurts me neck

 

[serf]

Sown thousands of acres with a wag tail , it was quick but never enough depth for the seed

Lightly springtine it in and roll .