I've upped rates a bit.
Now I've got vari seed rate capability on the drill I'm keen to trial that this autumn.
Yield drop when moving to direct drilling
- Thread starter Goodbeef
- Start date
Now I've got vari seed rate capability on the drill I'm keen to trial that this autumn.
With the new proposed directives being released this week then it says all manures and spreadable products on to farm land will need to be incorporated within 12 hours of application so this will rule out anything being put on no till land. I'd stick to what you are doing. A strip till drill might be a solution for those instances where you don't apply muck though.
What type of GD have you got Mark?
Most disc drills have that effect down here in Essex John! Some of them are crazy heavy when its wet.
3m mounted
How much downforce can you get on the discs, or will they just pull themselves in, even when rock hard?
Well
I'm not planning on doing much drilling in rock hard conditions, but I won't know till this autumn as the drilling demo was a 6m.
They have said its acceptable to hang wafer weights on to increase weight though..
It currently doesn't feel that heavy picking it up, so in drier conditions I think that will be considered.
The other thing might be to make a trailing kit for it in future, I like a little project.
I guess I'll find out how good it is at penetration when I drill osr after the Linseed, but that will only be shallow so shouldn't be an issue.
We've had some yields drop and sometimes they've gone up...we tend to up seed rates a bit as we are normally drilling untreated seed straight off the heap so it's a cheap input. The old nonsense of 'Yield is King' is out-dated, it's fair to say the King is dead! Yield is vanity, profit is sanity.
Gary Markham is collecting data from various no-tillers, a lot of them are posting on here. He'll be announcing his bench-marking figures at Groundswell in June...should be interesting
Gary Markham is collecting data from various no-tillers, a lot of them are posting on here. He'll be announcing his bench-marking figures at Groundswell in June...should be interesting
Feldspar
Member
- Location
- Essex, Cambs and Suffolk
What do you mean yield is not king? I read in the Farmers Weekly that you're pushing 12 t/ha in wheat!
You’re not allowed in farmers weekly unless you can average at least that ;-)
We have managed to do it...that is what they want to know, for them the king limps on...
Feldspar
Member
- Location
- Essex, Cambs and Suffolk
For how many square metres did you manage that?!
According to the yield map in the combine we hit it quite often (for a few square yards), at field scale only 100,000 sq metres...my point is that we can do it, but it isn't worth spending the money every year and every acre trying to join the court of some imaginary king. Some people have the land or climate where it's worthwhile perhaps.
When we took over 800 acres from a retiring farmer back in the eighties, he told us it was 2 and a half tonne land. He was a very good, traditional farmer and we thought he was a stuck in the mud old fogey. We were determined to prove him wrong and kept telling ourselves how clever we were as we hit 3 tonnes or 3 and a half. Meanwhile the bills kept creeping up, the land got sadder and we weren't making any more money...but, hey, we were spending lots on diesel and metal and sprays and fertiliser so any fool could tell we knew what we were doing. We took on an agronomist who told us it was four tonne land and upped the inputs accordingly...when the stars aligned we hit four tonnes an acre, but we'd never average it across the board. We were masters of he high input/low output system.
Ok, we are probably just rubbish farmers, but we are much better off not chasing yield
Patching thin wheat up, combi drill on the left, jd 750 on the right.
Combi still in another patch, better but still some thin patches.
Direct drill certainly giving better establishment.
Just a visual assessment, no figures to back it up as this is the first time we have tried a dd drill.
The wheat was sown in good order, it was the weather after that did the damage.
Patching up this spring the weather was good at the time, reason for a couple of days difference was we were waiting for the demo drill to come. Both were sown without any cultivation’s in front so not to bring up wet soil from further down.
yellow belly
Member
- Location
- south west lincolnshire
Notill wheat needs earlier drilling when it is dryer
with higher seed rate In conventional cultivated situation lower yields after lodging are a problem
Not growing second wheat which in the trials gives most of the margin reduction because of lower yields
A one year break has always given lower second wheat yields
with higher seed rate In conventional cultivated situation lower yields after lodging are a problem
Not growing second wheat which in the trials gives most of the margin reduction because of lower yields
A one year break has always given lower second wheat yields
- Location
- leics/warks border
I have upped winter wheat seed rates by 20% overall as I didn't think that 10% was significant enough, but in particularly heavy, wet areas I increased by upto 50% last autumn as it seemed the best solution to areas that are often thin, and it has worked as far as ground cover is concerned.
As Brisel said "its a bit chicken and egg" thin crop after thin crop, and the ground gets worse. Use higher seed rates to get more root mass can only help.
I also go earlier with the first N to encourage tillers.
But I have reduced winter rape seed rates as I find the germination rate better in notill crops and they get too thick, look great, but didn't yield.
I did get a yield drop in some crops, but not other in the early years. I have since learned how to avoid this from my experiences.
Feldspar
Member
- Location
- Essex, Cambs and Suffolk
The problem is just how much of an increase in seedrates are needed. We no-tilled some spring barley at the end of April. Put the seedrate up to 270kg and it's still far too thin (uneven germination partly due to slugs but we pelleted twice). Where we were setting up the drill we did a few test strips and these were then over-drilled when we did the main part of the field. Those areas look just about thick enough, which means really we should have cross-drilled with a total seed-rate of nearly 500 kg/ha. Conversely neighbours field over the hedge drilled into cultivated seedbeds at 175kg/ha looks thicker than that field by a good way. The one area I stuck the power harrow over the top after drilling looks a lot better.
Winter beans the same. Drilled at 160 kg/ha, but would have needed at least twice that seed rate to get a crop that I would say was good enough.
- Location
- leics/warks border
My only regular experience of spring cereals is game cover crops. I have found that putting DAP down the spout with the seed makes a huge difference as the crop gets away much more enthusiastically. I suspect that it's the N that makes the difference as our soils pretty good for P.