Interested as to what people think the best way of establishing crops are with wheat at £55/tonne. If you use min till - management costs increase If you use the plough method - it costs a lot more to run Seems to me the only real cost saver is direct drilling like the americans but it does not necessarily suit all UK soils. Whats the way forward for us? Eddie - a concerned guy thats just gone 40% SAS for next year.

The most common is a mix of all of them. To control problem weeds like blackgrass you have to plough. But people say this is only neccessary every four years. My preffered technioque is to disc and subsoil barley, rape and sas stubbles and then combination drill. With my really heavy land i tend to disc it then subsoil it because if i plough it it needs power harrowing two or three times. My really light land gets ploughed every year except after the mentioned crops. I'm currently looking into ways of cutting my costs on my heavy ground by subsoiling first then spinning the seed on with my fert spinner and then discing shallowly with a set of rolls behind. Haven't tried any direct drilling yet as my stubbles are usually left quite high to get performance out of my lexion that i need. This is not a problem as i only sell my Barley straw. Hope thius helps

Arableman, I think your probably right but I dont agree having two sets of kit standing there. Also doing what you suggested you get a conflict as you may need to be doing all the jobs at once. What I want is a one set of equipment that will do 80% of the job all the time with low operating costs. If they always achieve 80% of a job then I would be happy as there is no perfect machine out there. Ploughing and Combi drilling has finished as its far to slow. You can get caught out with the weather like now. However min tilling means you need to spend more time tending to your crops which does not allow you to do other things to provide an income. I am seriously considering direct drilling + one herbicide, one fungicide and a pesticide if required. One dose of fert and then hope for the best. If I manage a yield of 2 tonnes to the acre then I will be happy but at least I have not spent half as much as I usually would. I only need to own 1 tractor and a drill, a combine, sprayer and 2 trailers. I will then hire in an extra tractor for carting. You can't get much simpler than that. Then I can pursue another career and farm my 1100 acres in about 10 weeks a year. I must say renting out/share farming/contract farming etc is not an option for me as my tenancy will not allow it. Eddie

Not a bad idea. But your still gonna get problems with blackgrass etc. If that takes control and your only spraying one herbicide etc then your gonna struggle to yield 1 tonne/acre not 2. Unfortunately you'll probably have to plough 20% of the farm each year to control weeds and this creates problems as it then needs powerharrowing. Could you not go in after harvest and disc everytrhing and then spray off with roundup and then direct drill you could still do it with one tractor and a set of discs. How many acres do you farm? Would you be able to run one tractor in the summer carting corn and one on cultivations? One idea that my son has seen on a farm he worked on. Was a tillage train onsisting of a 9 leg subsoiler at 8", 4 metre set of discs and a 4 metre set of rolls. This was used behind a 6920 deere and followed the combine (lexion 460) this tilllage train was run 24 hours a day with the boss using it at night! This was then left four to five weeks and then sprayed off and drilled with a vaderstad rapid. Remember if your just going to direct drill your going to end up with terrible compaction problems after three or four years.

Edward, Why do you think min till involves more management time? How have you put your crops in this time?

Lee, Normally I min till (disc+press x 2, drill then roll) about 60% of our 1100 acres. The remainder is made up of ploughed land and SAS. All my equipment is old and the maintainance costs have become to high this last year which was one of the reasons I have gone to 40% SAS for 12 months. However I spend more time watching my min tilled land than I do watching the ploughed land. You are always looking for weed infestations that you dont get with the plough system. So I spend more management time on the min till crops. Although I dont want to plough anymore as its not cost effective. Hence my problem and another reason why 40% SAS is a viable option. I think if I could ever SAS 100% and get £88/acre I would do it. There is not a system out there that I think is the way forward apart from SAS. Eddie

Arableman, This subsoiler, disc, press system on a smallish tractor sounds like a good idea. What make of subsoiler is it? What make/type of discs? What press? How many acres does it cover in 12 hours? How many passes does he make? What drill follows it? What sort of soil is it working on? How has he coupled it all together? Has this guy got an e-mail address I could contact him on? Eddie

Not sure on all the makes. Think it was an old set of discs fetched out of the hedge!!!! There other set was a 9metre set behind a challenger 55. Subsoiler was shakerator without the pto and just a set of cambridge rolls with levelling tines on the front. Think they were covering around 80 acres in a 24 hour shift so say 40 acres in 12 hours. With just one pass made. Drill was a 6 metre vaderstad rapide 400c. Main soil type was sand and a fair bit of lightish clay. The rolls couple directly to the discs and then they couple to the subsoiler by way of a set of axles specially modified from a small 6 tonne trailer sat doing nothing. Some ground was done twice. Especially stubbles going into second wheats which were worked and then left until a suitable chit was made and then worked again before spraying off and then sowing.