 Farmers Guide - June 2007
OPICO has now extended its Till-Seeding concept to cereals as well as oilseed rape, and while the system will be on general display to the public for the first time at Cereals 2007, delegates at the company 's Till-Seeding conference, held at Peterborough in early May, got a first look at the technology and an in-depth explanation of how it works.
Central to Till-Seeding cereals is the new Sabre seeder grain drill from HE-VA, which OPICO's Managing Director, James Woolway, told the conference, allowed cultivation and seeding to take place at the same time.
"Its versatility allows it to drill uncultivated land, or land that has been partially or significantly cultivated," he said. "It can even be used as a cultivator to create a stale seed bed.
"The major benefit of Till-Seeding is that it is a single-pass operation that saves time, fuel and machinery wear, plus it allows farmers to create a smaller carbon foot print when producing crops."
Mr Woolway said that the Sabre Seeder grain drill was being lauched after a huge amount of trail work in the UK and Europe during the past three years - dozens of fields had been drilled in the UK on a number of farms with varying soil types.
"The seeder is an entirely new machine," he said. "Using its proven Disc Roller as the host unit, HE-VA has engineered the coutler tube around the Disc Roller arm and disc and has changed the press roller to suit drilling rather than cultivation.
"The key fundamentals of drilling are to place the seed at a consistent depth and to cover the seed and consolidate to obtain good seed-to-soil contact. The Sabre Seeder does each of these as well as or more accurately than most other systems available. Although we are doing less woork to the soil, we are achieving the essential requirements for good germination and growth.
"As a whole establishment system, using this drill reduces cost and achieves as good an establishment rate as as comparable modern drills."
Mr Woolway said that the Sabre Seeder grain drill used the proven Rauch metering system with a 1500-litre hopper and would be available in 3m and 4m rigid units and 4m, 4.8m and 6m hydraulic folding machines.
There would be 3m and 4m machines available for demonstration this year and OPICO will be taking orders for the 2008 season from this autumn.
 Complete system
The advent of the Sabre Seeder meant that OPICO was now able to offer a complete Till-Seeding establishment system to growers, Mr Woolway told delegates at the conference.
"Many farmers have commented on the benefits of subsoiler Till-Seeding of oilseed rape in subsequent cereal crops, where they have not needed as mush cultivation to establish the crop, or the cereals had appeared to benefit from better soil structure," he said.
"The Sabre Seeder grain drill is the ideal seed drill to follow subsoiler Till-Seeded rape as the integrated Till-Seeding system keeps establishment costs over the whole rotation down to a minimum while attending to the soil structure requirements of both the break crop and the cereal."
Earlier in the conference, Mr Woolway had said that during the past two years, OPICO had developed its Till-Seeding system for oilseed rape and now had a choice of three systems suitable for soil conditions. All employed a Variocast seeder mounted on different piece of cultivation equipment from the HE-VA range.
"Subsoiler Till-Seeding is ideal for light to medium soil types on which a fine tilth at the soil surface can be produced without intensive cultivation," he said. "the deeper soil profile movement by the subsoiler leg provides for good rooting, while the fine tilth created by the combined action of the subsoiler legs' disturbance and the V-Profile prees roller ensures excellent seed-to-soil contact.
"Heavier soils, how ever, need more aggresive surface cultivation to break down big clods and create fine soil particles to ensure germination, especially in dry conditions. In these cirumstances you need Combination Till-Seeding using a Combi-Lift subsoiler and Disc Roller. This combination allows you to susoil and surface cultivate in the same pass, ensuring germination and providing for good rooting.
"The third option, Cultivator Till-Seeding, is suitable for open, free-draining subsoil. In these circumstances, there is no point dragging a heavy leg through the surface tilth for the seed and consolidate to ensure gernmination.
"Based on the agronomy we've learned in the past two years, and other work we have undertaken with farmers, this new approach offers farmers a flexible solution tailored to their specific land and conditions."
Les is more where OSR seed rate are concerned.
One of the most ask questions about the Till-Seeding concept for oilseed rape in whether drilling in wide rows actually produces good yeilds, and this topic was tackled head-on by Masstock Agriculture's Phillip Marr, who is the company's Oilseed Rape Specialist and also manages the Brotherton Smart Farm Masstock demonstration site.
Mr Marr told the conference that the best place to see an ideal oilseed rape plant was at the side of the A1, where seeds had come off the back of lorries .
"These plants have more branching, thicker stems, are shorter and have improved rooting, he said. "And that's also what you are trying to achive on a field scale."
Mr Marr added that he never used more than 50 seeds/square metre at Brotherton Smart Farm in the past ten years, but he had averaged yields of 5.4t/ha during that period.
"Not only have we made substantial savings in seed costs, we have increased yields as well," he said.
Trail plots had shown that if the crop was planted too densely, a large proportion of plants would die off, but not before compromising the potential yield.
"We found that a plot with 140 plants/square metre in the autumn would have just 80 plants/square metre in March," he said. " The plants are killing themselves off rather than compete for sunlight and nutrients.
"Last year was good for establishment and many growers who sowed at 100 seeds/square metre will have now have 80 plants/square metre, but they have simply created a rod for their own backs. Heavy rain could well see a lot of these crops going down."
Another key to successfully growing oilseed rape was to choose the right variety for the sowing date to ensure the best possible root developement.
"The roots on your plants at the first week of December are the same roots that will take the crop right through to harvest," Mr Marr said, "so its vital you sow as early as possible, or avoid sowing varieties that will not be able to develop a sufficient root system by the cutoff date." "Masstock produces a variety list with a traffic light system system, that growers can use to find out if a variety is suitable for their planned drilling date."
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