Would dutch openers drill into an established grass ley?

[HarryB97]

Am currently torn between buying a Claydon Hybrid or Sprinter ST with dutch openers on. A large part of our rotation are 3-4 year grass leys which are grazed by cattle & sheep as well as silaged so compaction and a thick root mass are both issues. I want to come out of the grass with beans then back to cereals for a few years before returning to grass. The Claydon would handle drilling beans fine but would the dutch openers or would I be left with a large slot or legs that keep tripping out the ground?

 

[dirty harry]

Depends on soil type really? I’d say if possible run a carrier/joker type thing over it first so there’s some loose soil to cover seeds with either drill? Other wise yes narrow dutch (1-2”) should go in ok but for depth with beans I’d say Claydon maybe better? Sorry I can only tell you about dutch as never used a Claydon? Cheers dh

 

[Andrew K]

Claydon will do beans better in that scenario I would bet.

 

[HarryB97]

Confirms my thoughts, either one will probably look a mess though!

 

[Brisel]

For sowing into well established turf, I'd look for a drill with a leading disc to slice a slot that means the tine won't pull up great big lumps. A DTS or Mzuri has these. The silly discs on the front of a trailed Claydon wouldn't cut the cheese off the end of my d*ck. A set of discs before the drill would chop up the turf a lot. I ran a Carrier over a 2 year IRG silage ley before sowing with a Claydon and it went in fine, though it needed a good rolling afterwards and seed depth was a bit uneven.

How big an issue is compaction? You're talking about 2 very different drills in terms of what each will do and what hp each requires per metre of width. If I opted for the Horsch, I'd have a low disturbance subsoiler available to fix problems diagnosed with a spade.

 

[HarryB97]

For sowing into well established turf, I'd look for a drill with a leading disc to slice a slot that means the tine won't pull up great big lumps. A DTS or Mzuri has these. The silly discs on the front of a trailed Claydon wouldn't cut the cheese off the end of my d*ck. A set of discs before the drill would chop up the turf a lot. I ran a Carrier over a 2 year IRG silage ley before sowing with a Claydon and it went in fine, though it needed a good rolling afterwards and seed depth was a bit uneven.

How big an issue is compaction? You're talking about 2 very different drills in terms of what each will do and what hp each requires per metre of width. If I opted for the Horsch, I'd have a low disturbance subsoiler available to fix problems diagnosed with a spade.

I was meant to look at a trailed Claydon this autumn but never happened due to the weather, how good are the leading discs which can replace the leading tine? I do have a Simba Xpress I could use but was hoping to graze the grass really tight with the ewes till just before tupping at the start of november then drill straight in and as our land is heavy a set of discs would probably make a lot of mess, but you can adjust the angle on Simba discs which could help. Most of it would be surface compaction but we have never taken a field out of grass yet, our first field to be put back into arable will be next autumn.

 

[Brisel]

@juke has done plenty of drilling with the disc kit on his 3m Claydon. I've never used my disc kit yet but will do so next year I think. It puts a fair bit of strain on the coulter leg, so make sure you've got a few spares in stock.

 

[teslacoils]

Winter beans?

Subsoiler with seeder on 40cm rows.

 

[Michael S]

A Simtech with half the tines removed might be right at home drilling beans into grass. Cuts wheat in alright with all the tines on.

 

[Andrew K]

Looks good Michael,esp for this year. Did this field get rolled?

 

[Michael S]

Looks good Michael,esp for this year. Did this field get rolled?

Yes, drilled 30/9/19, rolled 3/10/19.

 

[redsloe]

@juke has done plenty of drilling with the disc kit on his 3m Claydon. I've never used my disc kit yet but will do so next year I think. It puts a fair bit of strain on the coulter leg, so make sure you've got a few spares in stock.

Presumably the disc kit is an extra on the option list?
Looking at the Claydon to possibly drill into grass too.

 

[Brisel]

Presumably the disc kit is an extra on the option list?
Looking at the Claydon to possibly drill into grass too.

This is from the Claydon brochure for the mounted Hybrid range

This is from the trailed range. The mounted versions don't have the front toolbar but you can specify the above too for the coulter/leg assemblies

The shouldered front discs were what prompted the "cheese" remark from me earlier but I don't have a trailed version, so my experience is limited to seeing what other users have had. Any kind of side slope means the drill crabs so the front shouldered disc does not cut directly in front of the tine/coulter assembly.

 

[redsloe]

Yes, I have the brochure and recently noticed the disc option. As being new to direct drilling I have favoured the strip till approach with leading leg as an entry into the system. I'm not sure if the disc assembly will be suitable right now but your comment

I've never used my disc kit yet but will do so next year I think.

just begged my question.
Did they come with the drill and leading leg?

Sorry to be a pain, I should just ask Claydon!

 

[Brisel]

I bought the disc kit afterwards. I wanted to be able to put the tine down to remove shallow compaction from the very beginning having sold ploughs and a Topdown to go to strip tillage. I bought the discs after a nightmare of a tedious but successful attempt to sow osr into chopped spring barley straw. I haven’t used them yet not have I tried to drill into chopped barley straw again!

 

[Andrew K]

How long was the straw Brisel, we have drilled rapeseed into chopped winter barley straw in the past but cut it up fine with the chopper and used 3" spoons on the rear springs?If it really proved a problem we used to run a set of rolls in front to take out soil fluffiness in front of the previous V drill. The hybrid was less bother in trash, but I used to like the V drill in baled going as I think it has less soil throw issues myself.

 

[Brisel]

I did the osr into very short stubble with the 3" spoons. DAP down the spout which got the crop away well. I raked the straw twice to spread it around better and ended up pulling big lumps off the field as they wouldn't fall through the rake. Longer stubble causes us problems so we top off cover crops once well dead just to help residue flow through the drill. The forward angle of the leading tine was where most of the troubles happened with straw balling up so the disc should make life a lot easier in these circumstances.

 

[Andrew K]

What sort of applicator did you use for the DAP?

 

[Brisel]

What sort of applicator did you use for the DAP?

The main drill hopper. I put the rape seed through a Stocks rotor meter at the back down into the airstream. I'll never do that again either - the DAP caused havoc with the Agtron blockage sensors on the distributor head by causing corrosion in the plugs. We couldn't use it for the next year properly & had to change 3 sensors that constantly played up.

Sorry - I've monopolised another thread!

@HarryB97 - a Claydon will do the job. @dirty harry is better placed to comment on what the Sprinter will drill into though he uses Dutch coulters IIRC. I can't readily think of anyone else using Metcalfs into turf.

 

[Simon C]

A Simtech with half the tines removed might be right at home drilling beans into grass. Cuts wheat in alright with all the tines on.

Put some beans into grass yesterday, every other tine in and took off half the flexi rings