Thinking of buying a direct drill with a view to drilling straight into rape, bean stubbles etc, similiar to may other threads on this forum. If previous crop has been sprayed with Kerb or Simazine, then manufacturer insists that it must be ploughed before planting following cereal crop. Now, we've all just disced rape and bean land and drilled wheat and never had a problem. So is their advice to be ignored ? are some cultivations necassery ? or would the problem be made any worse by direct drilling. Surely same amount of chemical residue remains in the top 6 inches of soil, whether its ploughed, disced or left as stubble ? Does it make a difference when Kerb or Simazine applied. Would I get away with drilling wheat into rape stubble that was sprayed with Kerb on the 6th of October the previous year ??? This point is critical to me buying this drill, Help please!!! Mike

Wheat can stand abit of simazine (some residuals actually have it as an ingredient!), but i have noticed damage from kerb after min cultivations (could see sub-soiler lines which brought up "clean" soil. I think alot depends on the weather and rainfall as to how much it disperses / degrades

We try and avoid using Kerb and Simazine just so we can direct drill after break crops. We use half rate simazine and stomp on winter beans then direct drill wheat without any problems. We tend to get fewer weeds in the rape (just so long as we have ONLY harrowed and direct drilled - discing and creating a stale seedbed in which all the weeds have not germinated prior to spraying off & drilling spells disaster!!) then we are usually able to get away with just a some Falcon or Fusilade.