Who's bottled it ?

[ollie989898]

Just view cultivation as an input and not a system Now. If there’s good reasoning and payback then do it.
crap crops are worse for soil than a cultivation, I’ve seen it. Still aim to dd as much as we can which is probably 70%.

In your present circumstances- I mean in terms of land, labour and the kit you have available, how much of your area do you think you could cover with a plough and secondary tillage if you had to/wanted to?

I have known some farmers keep older drills or ploughs etc in case of a rainy day but for a big area suddenly it's not so simple as just hitching something up?

 

[ajd132]

In your present circumstances- I mean in terms of land, labour and the kit you have available, how much of your area do you think you could cover with a plough and secondary tillage if you had to/wanted to?

I have known some farmers keep older drills or ploughs etc in case of a rainy day but for a big area suddenly it's not so simple as just hitching something up?

I could do the whole area if I had to I would just have to spend quite abit of money

 

[Fish]

As somebody who struggles with the occasional straw blockage in a Bomford Superflow with legs in 24” spacings it amazes me how these tine drill’s supposedly cope with trash. Either the chopper must turn the straw to dust or it’s baled and carted?!

I can’t speak for other drills, but our co would drill through a straw bale, the only time I’ve choked it is with s barley straw and wet rye straw with an 18” stubble.

I haven’t bottled it quite, I have cultivated one field, and with hindsight it was a bloody stupid thing to do, hay ho, desperate men and all that.

All methods have struggled this year, but to be fair dd fields have suffered more than others on the clayed soil types, but next year things may be different

 

[Drillman]

Regarding the grants, just because it’s a direct drill grant it doesn’t mean that’s what you gotta use it for.

weve an application in for one, the drill I’m looking to get will go into allsorts of situations, and having got the numbers it’s actually cheaper to buy new grant funded than a decent used version

ive been looking at the grants for a few years now and until this year couldn’t make the grant fit something that was of use to us

my view is if It fits take it, if it doesn’t don’t worry about it. Regardless this grant job can’t and won’t last. The potential change of government this year may accelerate the process as well.

 

[Renaultman]

For those new to notil strip till and dd
the forum section on notill/dd Has had the above discussion since before tff was started
15 years of experience successes and failures all for free

The beauty of this thread is it is involving a few, who wouldn't be caught dead on the DD pages.

 

[Wombat]

not so much with wheat but SB def sees a big boost with muck, looking for 3-3.5t/acre, dont achieve this and pass for high N malting without large volumes, we plough in 15-20t/acre

You would have to be at the lower end here as otherwise cattle manure would be breaking nvz rules

 

[4course]

I generally didn’t get less yield in the first few years. In fact, slightly more!
But you might hit a wall about years 3-4 that once you are through, it you should be back to normal.

But it is quite a huge learning process.

by normal am i right In assuming you mean the average of the previous4/5 years before starting out in which case im out our yields have improved/got better on average over the last 10-20-30-40 years yet we still plough mainly to help disperse the organic matter we endeavour to put into the soil wether ,muck chopped straw on occassions or catch/cover crops or digestate in its various forms plus the small advances in varieties or ppchems. Could do 4t with a wind behind the sail plus with norman huntsman etc years ago oh and the good old short early maturing variety that has disappeared grafton .

 

[More to life]

The beauty of this thread is it is involving a few, who wouldn't be caught dead on the DD pages.

It's one of the more useful information exchanges in some time. I'm also waiting on a grant aided DD primarily for sfi options. It will pay for its self in year one.

 

[DaveGrohl]

It's one of the more useful information exchanges in some time. I'm also waiting on a grant aided DD primarily for sfi options. It will pay for its self in year one.

Which drill?

 

[Badshot]

How many dd guys have gone cultivating?
Out next door neighbours practices a full range of cultivating and has 95% crop cover after a hard winter we dd a majority of ours and a currently re drilling 50% .cultivating a fair bit as the top is solid from rain.
Any one else feal like abandoning dd and practicing a more conventional approach?

Not me.

Glad I haven't either.
The wheat looks well now it's warmed up and dried up (in the south east).
Legume fallows DD hopefully going to beat the slugs.
On the whole, I'm a happy bunny.

 

[More to life]

Which drill?

weaving DG

 

[CPF]

A very big farming business near me ,and a lot of you on the TFF will now them .
Have been pioneers in DD/ min till from the 70’s
and still do it
But a few years ago have brought back the plough back into the cultivation system .
I would say they are probably the most experienced DD / min till farming company in the uk
Not missing a year from the 70’
Just ask yourself why the plough is back?

 

[DaveGrohl]

1978 Paper explaining classification of suitability based on Soil Series. This still applies in my opinion. Soil Series is a better determinant than an individual farmers personal definition of 'Heavy' 'Light' 'Medium'. From following thread and discussions on here over the years and occasionally getting to know the soil series my observation is those on here who profess success with direct drlling in general seem to have suitable soil series as defined in this 1978 paper. Hey ho.

Oh and good under drainage, r very free draining soils - without that the system will not work.

Maybe send that paper to the current non agric crop of civil servants (the team, I think they are called) running the SFI show.

Thank you for posting this. The map is very instructive and will save many painful years of learning.

 

[Bossfarmer]

You would have to be at the lower end here as otherwise cattle manure would be breaking nvz rules

noone will know

 

[Bossfarmer]

by normal am i right In assuming you mean the average of the previous4/5 years before starting out in which case im out our yields have improved/got better on average over the last 10-20-30-40 years yet we still plough mainly to help disperse the organic matter we endeavour to put into the soil wether ,muck chopped straw on occassions or catch/cover crops or digestate in its various forms plus the small advances in varieties or ppchems. Could do 4t with a wind behind the sail plus with norman huntsman etc years ago oh and the good old short early maturing variety that has disappeared grafton .

exactly its like someone told me theyd got rid of their cows 20 years ago and theres been no noticable drop in yield with their SB since then, i had to laugh at that, the reality is you should have considerably higher yields now as were all working with much higher yielding varieties

 

[Two Tone]

A very big farming business near me ,and a lot of you on the TFF will now them .
Have been pioneers in DD/ min till from the 70’s
and still do it
But a few years ago have brought back the plough back into the cultivation system .
I would say they are probably the most experienced DD / min till farming company in the uk
Not missing a year from the 70’
Just ask yourself why the plough is back?

There will always be some farms where and some farmers who can DD relatively easily.
Yes, the longer you DD the more the land improves to be able to DD easier.

But there are always going to be occasions where for one reason or another, ploughing might be better.
And if that is the case JFDI!

The trouble is that as soon as this happens, that DD farmer is going to be accused of Bottling it!

FFS, Ploughing and DD are both tools in the box to be taken advantage of where and when necessary.

Neither of them should be thought of as an Obsession.



Then you get the stupid soundbite jockeys who try to manipulate things and people by using so-called clever words like Regenerative farming.
For example McCain’s TV adverts claiming that the way their potatoes are grown is by Regenerative Farming.

I don’t know how they define Regenerative farming, but it sure as feck is not the way I do!

 

[Two Tone]

A very big farming business near me ,and a lot of you on the TFF will now them .
Have been pioneers in DD/ min till from the 70’s
and still do it
But a few years ago have brought back the plough back into the cultivation system .
I would say they are probably the most experienced DD / min till farming company in the uk
Not missing a year from the 70’
Just ask yourself why the plough is back?

If that big farming business is the one I think it is and they Contract Farm some land very close to me, they ploughed a couple of fields amongst the many others that they DD’d last Autumn.

They have just had to completely replant virtually that entire farm, including both those ploughed fields.
They have replanted the whole lot by DD’ing it.

But, I would never have classed them as constant/ dedicated DD’ers in the first place.
They will plant whichever way they think is best at the time, depending on all circumstances.

 

[ajd132]

If that big farming business is the one I think it is and they Contract Farm some land very close to me, they ploughed a couple of fields amongst the many others that they DD’d last Autumn.

They have just had to completely replant virtually that entire farm, including both those ploughed fields.
They have replanted the whole lot by DD’ing it.

But, I would never have classed them as constant/ dedicated DD’ers in the first place.
They will plant whichever way they think is best at the time, depending on all circumstances.

And one of the positives of having a bigger business is you can have more tools in the box without your fixed costs sky rocketing

 

[CPF]

And one of the positives of having a bigger business is you can have more tools in the box without your fixed costs sky rocketing

They don’t spend afortune on machines
I would say there barn is not very full.

 

[ajd132]

They don’t spend afortune on machines
I would say there barn is not very full.

You don’t need to spend a fortune