Michael,

I'm just back from my first visit to Tuscany where the plough apparently reigns and the clay soils seem to be turned over excessively deep (often 20in or more). It made me wonder about the energy needed to break down the huge lumps the practice leaves.

I believe most of the land I saw is likely to be sown with spring crops, so presumably harsh winter conditions should  help create some tilth. But the cost of the cultivations required for decent seed-beds must still be horrendous.

How many tightly-staffed UK farms with mainly winter cropping rotations even have the time to plough everything just to get rid of weeds?

Surely the most cost-effective answer lies in that over-used but hard to avoid phrase, the "integrated approach", combining the most appropriate tactics for the particular soil type, conditions, crop, dominant weeds and herbicide weapons available?

Do you know what Andrew? I 've got to use the plough even more this year. I do hate to say and yes, it takes forever to get across a field. But I find the good old plough still works for me.

 What is more I have noticed that Ploughs are making a bit more money at farm sales!?

With the price of red diesel, and staff wages, I prefer the plough to stay in the shed as long as possible. Also, with me being a "young inexperienced" farmer, my ploughing practice may not be up to the task of burying all the weed seed.

Longer rotations, bare setaside and fallow, spring cropping etc. With beet going down the pan, spring beans and peas doing so badly, linseed prices very poor. Personally, if I went down the stubbles route, and put my OSR on a set-aside contract, I would be tempted to go stubble/osr/wheat. At least that way I am assured of a decent stale seedbed before drilling, and on our clay it would mean no "fist sized" clods of blue clay, set solid by the sun, or the risk of watching an over fine seedbed (lovingly created by 3 power harrow passes) turning into a recreation of the Somme, modeled in dog poo when the rains come.

Plough not for me most years. Slowly getting rid of the weed burden in the 2.5 inches of soil I move on the surface - my roguing blackgrass is cheaper than Atlantis - and the day I do go back to the plough should turn up some very susceptible weeds.

Tim,

You are lucky to have blackgrass at roguable levels. Whereabouts do you farm and what other steps are you taking to avoid it becoming more troublesome?

Michael, Andrew, Steven and Tim

As with any forum there are plenty of views and standpoints, all of which are valid in some way. The problem of coarse with any discussion around cultivations on a national scale is that we are all focussed on our own situations and one mans heavy land is anothers blowing sand.

I have worked with several groups of growers around the UK and all will refer to their "heavy land" during conversation. In all too many situations "heavy" refers to sand with a bit more body, not the clay based soils that I would consider "heavy land".

Non inversion tillage is not for everyone. In far too many cases growers on lighter and medium soils have doubled their tillage costs by effectively equiping themselves with two cultivation systems, they only look at the direct cost/ha in each season i.e. I have disced rather than ploughed so my costs/ha are lower, rather than the ongoing effect on the bottom line via increased capital employed and depreciation of running two systems.

On light and medium bodied soils, where large semi mounted ploughs can be pulled at high speed by relatively modest sized tractors, the plough remains a very cost effective and flexible method of cultivation. The lighter soils have low soil strength and do not restructure naturally as they dry like clay fraction soils ..they have to be moved to depth to maintain structure.

Clay based soils on the other hand suit nit extremely well. The natural surface crumb makes a fantastic seedbed for all our major crops, but that surface crumb only extends to around 100mm in depth and no cultivation should extend below that except for shallow soil looseners than still maintain the surface crumb intact. Keeping that crumb intact allows us to intergrate the chemical armoury we have to very best effect.

1. we produce a better seedbed
2. we reduce the ability of slugs to hollow out seed
3. we retain shed seed in the upper soil profile where it can be tackled more effectively and the time of seed emergence can be more accurately predicted
4. Stale seedbeds can be sprayed off cheaply with glyphosate ...and be sprayed two or even three times prior to sowing
5. cost of cultivations is slashed while quality of seedbeds improves
6. wet, soil damaging conditions can be avoided
7. Pre-ems are more effective and more chemical actives can be successfully employed within the rotation (carbetamide and Propizamide are only effective in nit cultivated soils)
8. More consolidated soils able to carry sprayer and fert spreader better than ploughed soil ...more accurate timing of inputs.

The list of advantages to well planned NIT in clay based soils goes on and on and on, and the better the planning and execution, the better integration of chemical control can be achieved. Better chemical integration leads to improved weed control and as the upper soil seed bank of difficult weeds is exhausted the cost of control can be reduced. Stick the plough in after 5 years and your back to square one.

More plough, fewer chemicals? ....quite the opposite!

Dick