Spring barley was the last crop to be fully drilled with the 3m Mzuri Pro-till drill and despite the tricky spring, it yielded nearly 8t/ha last summer. 

Neil White believes this is partly down to the improved soil health since moving from the plough and combi drill system to the direct strip-till drill.

The increased resilience is also helping his winter crops cope better with the very wet winter.

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“Having no blackgrass problems means we can go early. Consequently, the winter wheats and barley look well.”

In contrast, some areas that were drilled later on potato land that had quite a lot of cultivation have suffered.

“Soil looks like porridge with that glistening surface. It looks like some of the wheats won’t make it.”

The success has also been helped by the tweaks to his Mzuri system for establishing winter wheat and barley.

Reduced seed rates

This autumn, he reduced seed rates in wheat after seeing some lodging last summer, particularly in the Dawsum wheat.

He previously variably drilled at 320 seeds/sq m, and it resulted in over 1,000 heads/sq m.

“It was unbelievable. The Dawsum seemed to keep going through the winter and got too thick.”

He didn’t go too heavy with the nitrogen either – at 180-190kg/ha – but it still went down.

“The good [autumn] conditions proved to be too much. Even with two growth regulators and lower nitrogen.”

This dragged the yield down with the Dawsum at 10t/ha compared with Champion averaging nearly 12t/ha. Extase was in between.

So this year, he went at 320 seeds/sq m in the Dawsum as the top rate in his variable rate, rather than the lowest rate.

“The reduced rate combined with the relentless rain means the crops look more sensible. I’m more hopeful that we can keep it standing this summer.”

Winter barley drill dates

In his other change, he is now going by conditions rather than fixed calendar dates for winter barley.

“I tell clients that they should be drilling earlier in autumn and later in spring with the Mzuri, but I hadn’t got round to doing this for the winter barley at home.”

The Pearl winter barley was sown 5-6 September, about 10 days to two weeks earlier than normal. “Drilling in early September saw good rooting before the weather broke and this has helped it withstand the wet winter weather.”

He says he even managed to get a chit of grassweeds and hopes the barley is cleaner than last year, where it was so dry he wasn’t able to.

“The crop is looking clean and well set up.”

Future

Looking to the future, Neil hopes to reduce cultivations more by lifting the Mzuri front legs further out to move less soil.

“We tried a disc drill last year, but yields were down by 0.5-1t/ha and we saw quite a bit of hair pinning. It shows the value of moving some soil.”