| Cereals
Soil, steel and success
Visitors to the AHDB Cereals & Oilseeds stand (number
1112) at Cereals 2016 will find a stark reminder of the
need for attention to detail in drilling.
Bettinson DD from
the early 1980s will
be on show this
year, on kind loan
from Lincolnshire
farmer Billy Drury.
In the 1970s, the Bettinson DD
was heralded as one of the ways
forward for UK agriculture. It was
to be an answer to labour and fuel
costs, keeping farmers in business
who were facing very high costs of
production.
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“As a contractor, I could never
say I’d direct drill a field until I’d
seen if the field was suitable”
Mr Drury, 64, from Dorrington,
has been using a direct drill on
and off for the last 40 years.
“The direct drill is probably the
reason that I’m still in business. At
the end of the 1960s, there was a
mass migration of labour and we
couldn’t afford to employ the
labour that we had.
“Times were tough, and very
similar to how they are now. We’ve
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almost come full circle.
“This drill worked because we
had small tractors that didn’t
cause massive compaction and
we had stubble burning to deal
with the trash.”
Despite a 27% increase in
direct-drilled acreage between
1977 and 1978, by the mid-1980s
plough sales were on the rise, and
the Bettinson was held up as an
example of all that was wrong with
direct drilling.
Harry Henderson, AHDB
Cereals & Oilseeds East Midlands
Manager, said: “What went wrong?
Why did the system fail? And what
can we learn today so we don’t get
swept up in the current excitement
around low disturbance, one pass,
combinable crop establishment?
We’ll be discussing all of this at
Cereals this year.”
Asking Harry or Mr Drury, the
answer that both would give would
be ‘attention to detail’.
In 1988, an HGCA research
review, Reduced Cultivation for
Cereals, found that:
‘The picture that emerged from
more than a decade of research
and farm practice is that
successful reduced cultivation
systems require careful planning
and more flexible management
than conventional systems. Many
farmers did not invest this quality
of management and allowed
problems to build up to a severity
which not only caused a
substantial loss of yield but
resulted in a permanent change of
cultivation method.’
It was very difficult, said Mr
Drury, to create a correct seedbed
in which to direct drill seeds. “As a
contractor, I could never say I’d
direct drill a field until I’d seen if
the field was suitable,” said Mr
Drury. “Most of the issues are with
what you’ve done on the ground
before, the quality of the drainage
and so on. You have to know if
there’s somewhere for the roots to
go.”
“Direct drilling isn’t a solution. It
has to go into the best seed bed to
work.”
Mr Drury’s Bettinson DD has
drilled some 4,500ha and is still
used, occasionally, for drilling
grass seed and patches in fields –
but – only when the conditions are
right.
Visit Cereals 2016 to find out
more, and join in the debate with
the Monitor Farm network, meeting
at 11:30 for an 11:45am start on 15
June.
Anyone interested in taking part
in the debate at Cereals 2016
should email
[email protected]
Don’t miss….
Discuss practical approaches to
measuring soil health in the ‘soil,
steel and success’ zone at AHDB
Cereals & Oilseeds’ stand.
Other features in this area
include a cover crops tunnel
highlighting cover crop
experiences from around the
country, information on the Monitor
Farms’ involvement in the Yield
Enhancement Network, and a soil
pit.
Visit cereals.ahdb.org.uk/cereals
May 2016 | Farming Monthly | 33