Contract Farming
Apart from just strip tilling stubbles ready for beet in the spring we are trying the option of planting a cover crop first then strip tilling through the cover crop as a second operation. We are banking on the cover crop adding the soil stability in the strip tilled rows over the winter.
Some pictures showing a mix of peas/linseed/radish and oats
Finally after quite a few phone calls to Vaderstad and Phillip Wright (thanks !) we finally have a solution of how to add another seed hopper to our Seedhawk. Desperate measures for one of the most frustrating and cold and wet and annoying spring seasons I can remember as we still haven’t been able to direct drill our spring barley area yet and we have some very hungry slugs. Hopefully after Daryn’s efforts in the workshop we have a fix which will let us drill slug pellets with the seed at 1/2 or 1/3rd rate using our old Opico Air8. Next step to get the two Horsch drills sorted out and we are already making a fix for the Sprinter or Aaron & crew are ! Update to follow !
Using the Amazone as a conventional drill putting in barley after sugar beet, works well and definitely speeds up the job !
Drilling spring barley into a standing mustard cover crop with the Sumo DD single disc opener direct drill. We’ve done some 250 acres with the drill having been to see Sumo last year and discussing the concept with them. Very pleased with what the drill has achieved as it disturbs very little ground, places the seed just in the moisture and at a good depth and Sumo as a company are first rate. Many thanks to Marcus and Robert for all their help and sorry about tearing up your pre-production coulters!
I will try and update this as the crop comes on but I’m quite hopefully that it will be a good result.
Carre Introw strip tiller has finally arrived; set at our sugar beet spacing it is 6m or 12 row machine. Originally designed or specified to drill two cover crop types at the same time with fertiliser for the sugar beet, recent experience with cover crops in front of beet this year has curtailed our enthusiasm a bit until we know more about what is an extremely complicated subject. The plan is to strip till about 40% of our 2018 beet area with the machine this year with about 10% of that using cover crops. The remaining area will be done more conventionally with min till.
First job will be to help establish our small but important return to Oilseed Rape growing after we dropped the crop in 2016. We are going to try a very limited area strip tilling in the seed while placing DAP underneath in the strip tilled rows. The purchase of a second hand but reasonably intact front mounted hopper has given us the means to do seed/fert plus micro seeds/pellets as we see fit.
We will see ! Long term we remain very committed to strip tillage for the sugar beet as we see it as a way of extending the crop onto our heavier soils and giving us the right ground conditions to lift later. (we may even try some winter beans at 50cm rows)
Now its turned a bit drier we are just dealing with the last of the blackgrass between the rows after Cent Max spray, getting most of the weed beet out (which will save a bit of backbreaking work latter !) and spraying some Dow Shield down the rows to get some late germinating thistles out.
Griffin Farming Strip Tillage for sugar beet
After a very difficult harvest it almost seems too good to be true that the beet season is starting off so well if a bit hectic. We haven’t started yet but reports of good yields and high sugars are coming in from other people. One of our trucks is full time on the beet at the moment with Jim driving his pants off ! Some pictures below of loading off Chris Clements Maus