Optimising drilling methods in conservation tillage systems for wheat and oilseed rape production in UK

Farmers, in the UK, are showing an increased interest in conservation tillage as they seek to increase the timeliness of crop establishment whilst reducing machinery and labour costs. Hence Frontier Agriculture and Lamport Hall are supporting a three-year research project to determine the agronomic, environmental and economic performance of five commercially-available conservation tillage systems within a wheat and oilseed rape rotation. In the second year (2014/15), the treatments had no significant (p=0.05) effect on the yield of wheat (11.02-11.65 t ha-1) or oilseed rape (4.30-4.94 t ha-1). The effects on soil were examined in a field experiment at Lamport in Northamptonshire and under controlled conditions using Cranfield University’s soil bin facility. In the field, the current two-pass farm system (including a Sumo Trio) tended to reduce the bulk density and the penetration resistance compared to the one-pass conservation tillage systems. This agreed with the soil bin results. The Sumo Trio (winged tine) resulted in the greatest soil disturbance followed by Mzuri (winged tine), Claydon, Vaderstad Rapid (disc) and Vaderstad Seed Hawk. The geometry and working depth of the tines affected both the force required from a tractor and the specific resistance (draught/area disturbed), with winged tines showing lower values of specific resistance.