- Location
- Bury St Edmunds
Has anyone got yield comparisons of wide ( 250mm) cereal rows vs conventional narrower rows?
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Wide cereal rows
- Thread starter Banana Bar
- Start date
- Location
- Limousin/Charentes toad land
I was rushed into wide rows last year 265mm, weed control was a problem for me. I haven’t yet but am planning on utilising all the seed outlets this year.
Why not have a word with your neighbour. He will have plenty of info on wide row spacing with the chameleon drill. But it might require a new approach to weed control for you.
NIAB Tag did some trials on this.
No paperwork I could attach so only experience of 300mm row spacing and there was no yield difference at all between that and standard spacing as found on a combi drill for example or vaderstad. However the weed burden was a lot worse because it was a tine drill and moved a lot of soil. Might be better with a disc drill not moving much.
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- Location
- Moreton-in-Marsh, Glos
Research in the 70’s also showed that a further yield benefit could be achieved by drilling it twice, the 2nd time at a 30 degree angle to the first.
IMO, moving from a 7” to 4” rows Showed only a very minor yield advantage.
But I wouldn’t want to go much wider than 7” with cereals or weed control reasons
IMO, moving from a 7” to 4” rows Showed only a very minor yield advantage.
But I wouldn’t want to go much wider than 7” with cereals or weed control reasons
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- Location
- Moreton-in-Marsh, Glos
Certain crops prefer wide spacing. Usually the ones that produce their seed all the way up the stem like beans.
IIRC, There was advice to drill them in wider rows and east/west to catch the most amount of sunlight
IIRC, There was advice to drill them in wider rows and east/west to catch the most amount of sunlight
The ban on stubble burning and move away from ploughing - much more crop residues requiring wider spacing to allow it all through the drill.
There are a few crops that need wide row spacing for light all the way down the plant, especially maize, but most grass species like cereals can work best in narrower rows.
Slightly off topic.
I gather zero till (very little soil disturbance) is meant to be beneficial in helping control Blackgrass, but I always wonder whether the wider row spacing associated with zero till (due to the need for trash flow) tend to negate the effect that zero till has on reducing Blackgrass .
I gather zero till (very little soil disturbance) is meant to be beneficial in helping control Blackgrass, but I always wonder whether the wider row spacing associated with zero till (due to the need for trash flow) tend to negate the effect that zero till has on reducing Blackgrass .
Hindsight
Member
- Location
- Lincolnshire
Brisel has pointed out NIABTAG did some comparative trial work about 10 to 15 years ago if I recall when the trend to wider row spacing drills (Claydon) started. Ask Fromebridge or your local NIABTAG agronomist if a member.
If you go back further to the 1980s there was trial work by ADAS on the reverse. What was the benefit of moving from the traditional wider row spacings to the new 12cm rows with the advent then of air seeders with a single seed unit rather than the previous box drills when spacing was constrained by the fluted roller seed metering mechanism.
The answer as I recall was no yield advantage in autumn sown cereals to the narrower spacings, and very occasionally in spring cereals.
Hindsight
Member
- Location
- Lincolnshire
I will have to delve into my library! But I recall there was no yield advantage from narrower spacings - when the desin of drills from box to air seeders allowed spacing to go from traditional 7 inch to 5 inch (12.5cm), except very occassionally in spring cereals. I could be wrong though.
I would argue that the “system” of conservation ag i.e. low disturbance, continuous ground cover and a balanced rotation, reduces blackgrass rather than the row spacing. The rotation is the main element IMHO. Low disturbance would help but does mean you have a bigger flush of the previous year’s shed seed unless you’ve forgone a cover crop for a shallow stale seedbed.
Im sure there was something in some Hutchinson or Agrovista bumph about this recently.
From experience I don’t think it matters but in the case of autumn sown crops, creating a stale seed bed then sowing really wide rows will probably be bad for blackgrass, if you are zero tilling and not disturbing soil it shouldn’t be such a problem.
The plants seem to have bigger ears but less of them
I also think it is variety dependant also for wheat.
spring oats and barley don’t seem to mind a wider row but spring wheat does.
the problem we have is all these things are looked at in isolation and not as part of a whole farming system.
A trial may say tight row spacing out yielded wide row spacing, but then you find out it was late drilled wheat after sugar beet.
You might get it the other way around, but it was direct drilled on 10th September.
I was speaking to someone yesterday who has travelled all around farms all over the world doing a Nuffield. Talking about variable seed rate. The Americans had been there and done it, reckoned it was pointless. Get enough plants and Mother Nature regulates itself either by thinning down/putting bigger ears etc etc (within reason using sensible seed rates)
From experience I don’t think it matters but in the case of autumn sown crops, creating a stale seed bed then sowing really wide rows will probably be bad for blackgrass, if you are zero tilling and not disturbing soil it shouldn’t be such a problem.
The plants seem to have bigger ears but less of them
I also think it is variety dependant also for wheat.
spring oats and barley don’t seem to mind a wider row but spring wheat does.
the problem we have is all these things are looked at in isolation and not as part of a whole farming system.
A trial may say tight row spacing out yielded wide row spacing, but then you find out it was late drilled wheat after sugar beet.
You might get it the other way around, but it was direct drilled on 10th September.
I was speaking to someone yesterday who has travelled all around farms all over the world doing a Nuffield. Talking about variable seed rate. The Americans had been there and done it, reckoned it was pointless. Get enough plants and Mother Nature regulates itself either by thinning down/putting bigger ears etc etc (within reason using sensible seed rates)
I agree with most of that, but VR seed does reduce variations in the field, especially where there are extremes of soil type. Whether you get more net margin is less clear.
From memory, the TAG trials only showed a yield drop in wheat over 30cm in a poor tillering spring. Winter osr was fine up to 75cm.
From memory, the TAG trials only showed a yield drop in wheat over 30cm in a poor tillering spring. Winter osr was fine up to 75cm.