Why I'm quitting no till (for now)

[Louis Mc]

Stuff after rape has come well this year despite it being horribly horribly wet, and the stuff 2 years after rape is coming well too so I can't say rape is really causing big slug problems.we will lose more crop to wet patches than slug damage this year

 

[Renaultman]

Stuff after rape has come well this year despite it being horribly horribly wet, and the stuff 2 years after rape is coming well too so I can't say rape is really causing big slug problems.we will lose more crop to wet patches than slug damage this year

So will I, I think.

 

[Feldspar]

OSR seems to be a major problem , either avoiding flee beetle, pigeons or slugs, before and after the rape. Stopped growing it years ago, and hardly use a pellet. I do wonder if pig slurry applied before ploughing, helps deter them. I'm sure sewage sludge does.
Better off with continuous wheat , mucked every year, on heavy ground. I have applied for the 2 year legume fallow in the new mid tier application on 30 acres, which I'm surprised you no tillers haven't jumped after. It pays £511/ha, and you can keep topping black grass and are building fertility . Looks much better than beans or OSR to me.

Our AB15 is in the ground and growing nicely. Seriously worried when we drilled it in marginal conditions given the seed cost, but it's come well. The same cannot be said though for the two buffer strips that I forgot about and applied a pre-em to!

 

[Flat 10]

Latest NIAB data casting doubt on the usefulness of getting black-grass chits prior to drilling. Currently run a Claydon SR and a JD750a.

Wtf? I know you are not going to put niab tag data up here but please explain in general why BG chits are not useful please.

 

[Feldspar]

Wtf? I know you are not going to put niab tag data up here but please explain in general why BG chits are not useful please.

Basically natural seed mortality as it lays undisturbed on the surface may be higher than previously thought. I can't remember the exact wording, but it was more of a "It may be..." type conclusion.

 

[Flat 10]

Basically natural seed mortality as it lays undisturbed on the surface may be higher than previously thought. I can't remember the exact wording, but it was more of a "It may be..." type conclusion.

Thanks.

 

[James W]

This Inland Aerator Cultivator has been around for years, we liked it because it is self cleaning due to overlapping spike rotors. Great video worth a watch, makes it look easy. Our one was ok on lighter soil but didnt really do the job on damp clay. It never blocked up though. On medium land it might help with min-till.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=24&v=7AfI_1nCqQQ

 

[Feldspar]

750a is a time honoured successful drill. Acid test is you never see a nearly new 750a for sale s/h people keep them for years.
If you look at the forum classifieds its eye opening to see want type of drills are represented by a long string of nearly new s/h drills for sale. The 750a doesnt address compaction though and this year we have had a trickier harvest and wheelings are set into the fields so our dts drill has repaired all the damage as it mid-soils the whole field to 7inchs and non-inversion. btw the terrastar is a direct copy of the Australian tiller that has been around for years so i guess its quite a good implement. The terrastar at Cereals event was full to the frame with rubbish , does yours pick up residues?

We have 5star resistant black-grass and if we dont pre-chit the black grass we dont get a crop. We gave up using Avadex followed by Crystal/Defy as it no longer works on our grass weeds. That mix was good for a while but we have now selected down to total resistance, and Atlantis works like nitrogen on our grass weeds. After a light stubble disc we get 1000 grass weeds per square meter on our worst patchs (which is the seed from only 10 blackgrass heads) which are killed off with glyphos or re-chitted with another top cultivation. How can that be wrong approach !!?

Yes, this year was a bit of pain for bindweed. We had a few areas where it grew alarmingly fast and we were late to spray it off. Spent quite a while unblocking it from this. Clean bean fields are OK -- will pick up a bit of haulm, but nothing serious. Everything else is largely fine (except baler twine left by baling contractors).

 

[James W]

Basically natural seed mortality as it lays undisturbed on the surface may be higher than previously thought. I can't remember the exact wording, but it was more of a "It may be..." type conclusion.

i know what NIAB are saying but it is a misunderstanding of basic bacterial and fungal biology. The theory is that a fence post snaps at ground level, where it is rotten, because there is both air and water. But above the ground the fence post is dry and solid, below the ground the post is wet and solid. The idea does not translate to blackgrass unless the grass seed is disced into the top inch where there is air and water. Also most seeds are covered in oil to protect them from rotting in the natural world so the seed must meet abrasion to chit, hence discs are better than spikes as more seed is scratched breaking the oil case and so germinating. Also, if grass seed is left on the surface, birds will spread it all round your farm in excrement.
Last thought on this - we have found that if we try to chit blackgrass before it has broken dormancy it does not chit ... no suprise? But then even when dormancy breaks we still only get a poor chit. Often we have to re-cultivate to get the first chit. This is why some years seem to be bad grass weed years, people think they didnt have much grass so they drill the crop then get the grass weed.
In fact this year is a example, grass only just coming through now on our second/third chit passes

 

[Dockers]

Do you sell discs ?

 

[Will Blackburn]

They idea that discs scratch seed more than tines is amusing.

 

[James W]

perhaps your right, maybe it is amusing..

we have found that in dry conditions, on hard clay, a disc set very shallow and angled gives a better grass weed chit than a bank of tines at the same depth. The dry gritty soil and the seed is crushed together as it is cut from soil surface by the edge of the disc which causes the seeds oil coating to scratch letting in the moisture for germination.

 

[mikep]

Basically natural seed mortality as it lays undisturbed on the surface may be higher than previously thought. I can't remember the exact wording, but it was more of a "It may be..." type conclusion.

Is that Niab tag? sounds more like IARC?

 

[yellow belly]

black grass germination percentage is under 50% at best

it relies on producing a lot of seeds and only needs 1% to produce seed the following year

leaving it on the top also give the pre emergence herbicide a better chance to work I have found bg in notill to have a 20 mm green shoot but the roots are not in the soil so cannot take up residual herbicide till the get into the soil

the current dry weather round here will be diminishing the seed on the surface if it cannot get a root down
when it does it will get a drink of pre em herbicide

bg seed buried 15 mm in the ground will miss the pre em herbicide although avadex vapour may get it

I have also found that in notill kerb is very effective due to the shallow rooting and seed on the surface
just as on cultivated seedbeds that are very fine and firm usually lighter soils or well weathered heavy land

this year round here cultivated seed beds have been very good with no need for slug pellets but many field have had then needlessly this will continue till it rains
today a farmer round here has wheat that was drilled 2 weeks ago and it has not had enough rain to germinate