No Till biological farming
- Thread starter Louis mc
- Start date
Blackwater boy
Moderator
How did you go about that Louis, what I mean is did you spray it off the day before or few weeks before, do you need lime and or p and k?
It looks super tho in fairness.
This was sprayed off a week before cutting, then left for a further 4 weeks (roughly) before drilling. It got lime, partly to help neutralise acids from decaying sward. It's had nothing else apart from a few pracutionery slug pellets post rolling which I think now were wholly unnecessary.
Always Thinking
Well-Known Member
Drilling into ley is the perfect place to start no till, all the preperation work is done, we drilled no-tilled OSR into ley last year did an ok 1.55t/ac nothing special but ok for the year thats in it, drilled it with Oats 2 weeks ago and the soil was so soft and friable, the structure was still there, massive difference to the next door field which is in long term cropping even with reduced tillage, it needed alot more downforce to get drill into ground and more power to pull!
Always Thinking
Well-Known Member
AYF
Well-Known Member
Will that be for stock feed or has that kind of mix another use?
Given the 24 different soil treatments there are a large number of statistically significant results reported on. Some of the more interesting or useful results were:
- All fertiliser treatments resulted in a lowering of the soil pH. Plots with residue returned at 5000kg/ha had a significantly lower pH than the other residue treatments;
- Fertilisation had no effect on organic carbon content of soils under control and 5,000kg/ha residue returns but a significant effect was seen when fertiliser was combined with 2,500kg/ha residue returns. Plots with residue return had higher organic carbon carbon than plots with none;
- Fertilisers had differing effects on total nitrogen content depending on residue return but the more crop residues that were returned the higher the total N observed;
- The carbon-to-nitrogen ratios were highest in plots without residue return and decreased as residue return increased;
- Residue return resulted in a significant increase in available nitrogen and potassium, but not phosphorus.
- A 5,000 kg/ha residue return resulted in a higher total and ratio of soil microbial groups than both the other residue treatments but the ratio of fungi to bacteria was reduced;
- Fertiliser effect on soil microbes depended on the crop residue amount for a significant effect to be observed;
- Residue return significantly effected fungi and bacteria and had an indirect effect on bacteria due to an increase on the soil fertility while fertiliser effected bacteria in the soil as a result of the decrease in pH;
- Microbial community composition of plots with 5,000kg/ha returned were significantly different from the other residue treatments.
Always Thinking
Well-Known Member
Did you did one in any of your ploughed fields?
Yes I continued this investigation today. I went to a block with 2 fields, same soil type etc, both had straw chopped this harvest. In the first field was an oat cover crop(field has had 2 direct drilled crops harvested, last ploughed in autumn 2013
The second field has been ploughed for at at least the last 30 years. It currently has a crop of winter wheat established with plough and one pass.
In dd field I dug 2 holes, approx 8" cube and I did the same in the ploughed field.
I counted approx 40 worms in the each of the dd holes
In the ploughed field Ifirst hole had 5 and second had 10.
Pretty conclusive if you ask me
C
Cork
Guest
Very interesting indeed. Now, to be fair one should probably do a lot more than one dig in each field to get statistically solid results but I'd say you're not far off in terms of the worm number comparison. Turning the extra worm numbers into extra profit is the next step.
Blackwater boy
Moderator
Louis if your attempting to annoy me or stir shit with tagging me in your findings your wrong. Glad to hear you have great worm life in your soils.
I did 2 digs in each...... final year in college statistics lecture was painful, I swore never to get involved with them again :scratchhead::scratchhead:
No I was just inviting discussion
C
Cork
Guest
never liked them either but theyre v important if one wants to prove a point.
Agree turning extra worms into profit will be the trick... can only be a good thing though, just have to manage things right to get the payback
C
Cork
Guest
Agreed Louis, definitely a good thing.
nashmach
Well-Known Member
2 samples and you think that is statistically significant
You have another 28 holes in each type to dig so Louis....
And yes I'm a stats nerd :rolleyes2:
I never said it was statistically significant.2 samples and you think that is statistically significant
You have another 28 holes in each type to dig so Louis....
And yes I'm a stats nerd :rolleyes2:
What Do you expect the other 28!hokes will show???
nashmach
Well-Known Member
I said it was pretty conclusive not statistically significant, have you access to a dictionary/thesaurus???