Autumn cultivations are crucial to preparing a good seed-bed for sugar beet drilling, Gordon Spoor, a retired Silsoe soil scientist, said at Beet 09.

“The conditions you leave in the autumn and winter are critical. Ideally you’re looking for a level surface without any holes, but cloddy enough to minimise the risk of slumping.”

Achieving that aim would mean the soil would need less time to dry before drilling could start, he said.

“If you have to cultivate, restrict it to the top 40-60mm of soil, and you should have minimal difficulty, although you will lose a bit of moisture.”

But if growers had to work deeper, it could mean real trouble, he said. That was because soil from 100m depth did not dry after five days of drying, unlike soil nearer the surface. “And it will be the same after 25 days.”

Growers might consider they needed deeper cultivations to ease badly slumped soils prior to drilling, he said. “I’d suggest you don’t. As long as the soil is moist, even though it is compact, the roots will penetrate.”

Growers also needed to minimise moisture loss, wheelings and compaction, and not overwork soils, which could create capping, he pointed out.

Keeping wheelings out of the crop’s growing area would allow growers to work sooner, he said. “Most of the time growers delay because of the fear of wheel damage rather than impaired implement performance.”

Improved technology should now make that possible, he said. “We have to work to remove all wheels from the cropping area. If you remove them the opportunities are endless.”

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