Fully agree on picking your own grass mix Andrew. Most mixes only have 1- 2 good varieties. You should look up the teagasc ppi list of grass varieties, massive work put into them. Quite the fan of monocultures here, have a lot of abergain on its own and cows love it and always see a jump in milk when they graze it. Agree on the double rolling too, we ended up doing it by accident a few years ago ahead of the grass harrow so I could see my last pass, by far the best take in grass seeds we’ve ever had
Great Video Andrew, In principle I agree with everything you say, but the method we used when farming was different, because we farmed in a different country, different hemisphere and different farming system, thanks for sharing
'I'd like to do a better job, but I don't think it's that important' - I can just hear all the arable farmers gasping in shock 🙂 And the rest of us dairy farmers all saying 'As long as it's turned over something like then it'll be fine, and no it doesn't matter if it's straight either!'
What size are the rear tyres on the tractor Andrew? Quite likely the plough isnt far off set right just the tractor is flattening half of the last furrow each time making it hard to match up, Thats assuming plough is level (stop mid pass and measure main beam to bottom and front and rear of plough, and also to confirm the front furrow is taking the right chunk just measure the width from the cut edge to the landslide on that front furrow in the ground, should match the furrow width whatever its set to 14/16/18" etc... Also make sure when your in work / ploughing the top link is floating in the slot, if its not adjust top link so it is, so that as you go up / down the plough is able to maintain its height without binding up :) Theres likely alot more to it than that, but thats the main things I find to keep things running smoothly, (Also confirm landslides are running inline with the ploughing, if not adjust that at the front of the plough also, but looks to be fairly close in the video. Id guess tyres are just to wide, do you know what bodies the plough is on? Likely be better with a newer wider body to help with the wider tyres. Worth getting right as no matter how much you work down the ground after, once the ground has settled again, it will be rough as rats for years to come which is always very annoying! Thanks for the videos.
Great video Andrew. Can't beat a great tune over drone footage. Mr Hawkes should be well pleased. By the way no front furrow problems with a fully refurbed 3115 on the plough😎
great video for reseeding, looking forward to the grass stitching video coming soon, did ye consider a zero grazer for them heavy cover fields, i know expensive equipment but seems to be more common now on diary farms to keep cows in at night with fresh grass.
The ground was sticky looking when you were ploughing, day or 2 of drying made some difference. Good to see the stoor rising when yer man was sowing the seed. Good video
I often wondered were your farm was Andrew, from the drone footage I could see Omagh Meats and the NIE Sub- Station the Fane Valley Farm Shop isn't far away either!😂 Great explanation of the work .. hopefully it grows well for the girls..! PS: very rare to see a Framer from NI in shorts..😊
First thing is you should never go same direction with the power harrow twice, always go at a 30/40 degree angle on first pass , and second pass with ploughing , reason for it levels in any ruts first run and 2nd run your wheel tracks are different each time and are same direction of travel once grass grows after second run , or rolling after plough before first run of power harrow , firms up the ground before the power harrow and makes wheel tracks less in loose soil 👍
If the front furrow is set to the same width as the other furrows, your plough is level front to back, and it is set correctly on the turnover, then I'd check the adjustment on the front mouldboard. I find the front mouldboard starts to kick back too far and needs readjusting from time to time. Measure the distance between the 2nd and 3rd mouldboard, and set the front the same, if it needs adjusting. Hope this is helpful.
grate job on my farm we aren't a fan of ploughing its all disk harrowing only plough a field if it over 10 scents the last time. if you where the fell on my harrow and you go the same way twice id go mad have to go with the ploughing first and then agents the ploughing the second time.
Adrian from ifarmwefarm has a harrow/tines attachment with a grass seed spreader on top that he seems to repair damaged fields with, is this just a different approach than completely reseeding, I’d be interested to hear your take on it and if it’s an option you would consider?
Are you on no8 or no28 boards? No8 boards dont throw the scores across far enough and then your wide tractor tyres squeeze the last furrow down to let the first furrow of the next run drop in. No 28 boards are better but its still a problem.
The pressure on the landslides helps to determine the front furrow width. If you can alter the angle of the plough to put less pressure on the landslides it will make a wider front furrow, make small adjustments because it is very sensitive. If you can’t alter the angle of the plough keep the check chains tighter to stop it moving around. To me it looked like you needed to adjust the turn over angle to make it turn more to put the front deeper and a narrower front furrow throws the soil over to cover the wheelings.
We use a contracter to do the drilling. Joseph walls hilltown county down. I haven't actually seen the drill. If we ploughed the land it would bring up massive big stones. Are area is very stoney. You are right about not sowing the clover get rid of the weeds then put the clover in. Keep up the great videos👍
the tyres on the tractor are probably too far in, you mentioned in another comment that they are 650s, too wide, the tyre shouldn't be much wider than the share, the edge of your first furrow should be in line with the inside of the tractor wheel, you should rather set the wheel to the plough rather than the other way round to pull straight. arms should be free moving, no stabilisers, the arms are designed to pull an even load dead straight behind the tractor which is why you need to set the tractor to the plough. if you don't use the correct tyre size and don't set them inline properly with the plough there is little to nothing you can do after to make the plough plough well.
So i’m sitting here on a Saturday evening suffering from PTSD from them shorts . Wtf were you thinking of. The last time you wore them was in Ibiza 1995 . 😅 Ps great informative video . Have a great weekend . pps did you see the weather from next Thursday onwards . Them fields will be green in no time .
Without giving away personal financial details, why do you think the optimum stocking rate is as high as yours? You spoke in previous video about your love for grazing but with a stocking rate so high you basically from a business point of view have a fully housed system hidden inside a grazing system
Higher the stocking rate the more profit. I would make more money housing the cows. I like grazing for the lifestyle benefits so try to do it and maximise profit
When you plough out a grass field to bury the old grass you need to turn the furrows over as much as possible, if you ploughed across the side of the field the plough would struggle to turn the furrows over completely.
here in England our government is trying to get farmers to use less fertiliser and make more use of organic forms of fertiliser including clover......i don't know what policys your government is pursuing but would you consider a lower stocking rate with lower inputs if your government wanted you to do that of course if there was financial incentive i suppose that might sway you to do things differently. i remember comenting a while back saying that if you use too much fertiliser on a wet year it pushes the grass on too fast.......it looks like thats whats happening this year......you could have cut the fertiliser down a bit and saved some money......if only we had crystal ball
I will follow the money. If the government makes my business significantly less profitable in its foolish pursuit of net zero I will just stop farming and the nation can starve.
Totally agree with you regarding the use of roller. Should never be used on grassland. Clovamax post emergence spray (new this year) Have had very good results with an erth direct drill for the last 5 years. Pulled a plough for years but sold it because I had enough stones picked!
Makes me want to get a plough and some rough ground and make the most heinous ploughing videos. Call it Plough Master or something, just pure rage bait.
Whats the benefit of your reseeding process over direct drilling. I have reseed quite a bit of ground with a erth direct onto a sprayed off sward. 6 weeks from sowing to grazing if sown around april 1st. I have rolled and not rolled after the erth. Unrolled grows better in the first year, then no difference
I agree, people get too anal about ploughing. It's the finish that's most important. Like building a wall, the plastering is most important. In your case, the harrowing & rolling 🤠
Ploughing the field perfect is the most important part I’m a dairy farmer and yes I have done some bad ploughing but when a neighbour came over one year and show me what I was doing wrong, from then on I always do a good job of my ploughing and it take a fraction of the diesel to make it ready, and sorry but you gave terrible advice and it shouldn’t be name how to reseed a field
Oh dear 🤦 you need to get a ploughing lesson from @DrewsFarminLife😂😂😂 Then you wouldn't be bouncing around like a rag doll.🫨 Ploughing to break up compaction and then heavy rolling to make it rock hard, you can understand why some people are confused 🤔 I'm assuming while you are grazing these big covers you have paused the silage buffer? Drone showed a bit of soil massaging has been going on in some of the other paddocks, I assume that's the over seeding video. And those shorts 🫣😂🤣😂🤣
Fully agree on picking your own grass mix Andrew. Most mixes only have 1- 2 good varieties. You should look up the teagasc ppi list of grass varieties, massive work put into them. Quite the fan of monocultures here, have a lot of abergain on its own and cows love it and always see a jump in milk when they graze it.
Agree on the double rolling too, we ended up doing it by accident a few years ago ahead of the grass harrow so I could see my last pass, by far the best take in grass seeds we’ve ever had
Rolling the furrows before powerharrowing helps level and firm the ground we find
I was trying to get a Cambridge roller to do just that! Ran out of time to find one.
Great Video Andrew, In principle I agree with everything you say, but the method we used when farming was different, because we farmed in a different country, different hemisphere and different farming system, thanks for sharing
No criticism. Just fair play to you. Quality job
'I'd like to do a better job, but I don't think it's that important' - I can just hear all the arable farmers gasping in shock 🙂
And the rest of us dairy farmers all saying 'As long as it's turned over something like then it'll be fine, and no it doesn't matter if it's straight either!'
What size are the rear tyres on the tractor Andrew? Quite likely the plough isnt far off set right just the tractor is flattening half of the last furrow each time making it hard to match up, Thats assuming plough is level (stop mid pass and measure main beam to bottom and front and rear of plough, and also to confirm the front furrow is taking the right chunk just measure the width from the cut edge to the landslide on that front furrow in the ground, should match the furrow width whatever its set to 14/16/18" etc... Also make sure when your in work / ploughing the top link is floating in the slot, if its not adjust top link so it is, so that as you go up / down the plough is able to maintain its height without binding up :) Theres likely alot more to it than that, but thats the main things I find to keep things running smoothly, (Also confirm landslides are running inline with the ploughing, if not adjust that at the front of the plough also, but looks to be fairly close in the video. Id guess tyres are just to wide, do you know what bodies the plough is on? Likely be better with a newer wider body to help with the wider tyres. Worth getting right as no matter how much you work down the ground after, once the ground has settled again, it will be rough as rats for years to come which is always very annoying! Thanks for the videos.
They are 650's. I will check the plough in great detail before the next field!
Another brilliant video
Well since you did ask I'd say you could go a little deeper at the front to solve the issue. So shorter top link and/or lower the arms a tad. 🤠
Use clovermax as post emergence spray. Clover safe spray. Can use Eagle at its lowest rate also but its not licenced for reseeds.
Great video Andrew. Can't beat a great tune over drone footage. Mr Hawkes should be well pleased. By the way no front furrow problems with a fully refurbed 3115 on the plough😎
Very true. 😅 It would be great for ploughing!
@@FarmTheoryNI And could plough uphill!!
great video for reseeding, looking forward to the grass stitching video coming soon, did ye consider a zero grazer for them heavy cover fields, i know expensive equipment but seems to be more common now on diary farms to keep cows in at night with fresh grass.
It definitely would have been useful this spring but in a normal year we manage okay!
Great video again, few questions: why should grassland never be rolled? As in if its poached and why dont you use a land leveller or chain harrow?
The ground was sticky looking when you were ploughing, day or 2 of drying made some difference. Good to see the stoor rising when yer man was sowing the seed. Good video
Thanks 👍
I often wondered were your farm was Andrew, from the drone footage I could see Omagh Meats and the NIE Sub- Station the Fane Valley Farm Shop isn't far away either!😂
Great explanation of the work .. hopefully it grows well for the girls..!
PS: very rare to see a Framer from NI in shorts..😊
First thing is you should never go same direction with the power harrow twice, always go at a 30/40 degree angle on first pass , and second pass with ploughing , reason for it levels in any ruts first run and 2nd run your wheel tracks are different each time and are same direction of travel once grass grows after second run , or rolling after plough before first run of power harrow , firms up the ground before the power harrow and makes wheel tracks less in loose soil 👍
If the front furrow is set to the same width as the other furrows, your plough is level front to back, and it is set correctly on the turnover, then I'd check the adjustment on the front mouldboard. I find the front mouldboard starts to kick back too far and needs readjusting from time to time. Measure the distance between the 2nd and 3rd mouldboard, and set the front the same, if it needs adjusting. Hope this is helpful.
Great video, Andrew😊
Thanks for watching
grate job on my farm we aren't a fan of ploughing its all disk harrowing only plough a field if it over 10 scents the last time. if you where the fell on my harrow and you go the same way twice id go mad have to go with the ploughing first and then agents the ploughing the second time.
What’s your thoughts on reseeding in spring vs autumn?
fantastic video👍
Thank you 👍
Pre mow them heavy covers
Adrian from ifarmwefarm has a harrow/tines attachment with a grass seed spreader on top that he seems to repair damaged fields with, is this just a different approach than completely reseeding, I’d be interested to hear your take on it and if it’s an option you would consider?
I saw that! It's a very expensive bit of kit!
It would be great to hear more about variety selection/kg rates etc for reseeds and mybe expand on the decision not to use clover😮.
V .G videos
Great to see a man taking pride out of doing a great job..
Massey cant plough up the hill!....😂😂😂😂😂
Good stuff
Are you on no8 or no28 boards? No8 boards dont throw the scores across far enough and then your wide tractor tyres squeeze the last furrow down to let the first furrow of the next run drop in. No 28 boards are better but its still a problem.
Number 8!
Any recommendations on reseeding rocky ground with shallow soil?
Disc Harrow with crumbler roller on it
The pressure on the landslides helps to determine the front furrow width. If you can alter the angle of the plough to put less pressure on the landslides it will make a wider front furrow, make small adjustments because it is very sensitive. If you can’t alter the angle of the plough keep the check chains tighter to stop it moving around. To me it looked like you needed to adjust the turn over angle to make it turn more to put the front deeper and a narrower front furrow throws the soil over to cover the wheelings.
You can adjust the turn over angle?
There's an adjuster bolt by where the hydraulic ram connects to turnover mechanism on the headstock. 24mm spanner fits it I think.
Have you ever thought about pre mowing the heavy paddocks then let the cows in to graze it
Yep, we do it a lot. Ground isn't try enough to do it yet imo
Whats the theory around rolling before seed-seems more compaction
Gets rid of stone before sowing and also gets a firmer seed bed.
You have the roller now buy the grasseed box and fit it on the roller and sow your own as your roll 🎉😂
Not the worst idea ever! 🤔😅
@@FarmTheoryNI we have it on a 6 metre Cambridge roller
Very enjoyable video. We used to plough to reseed now we drect drill least hassel and great results .
What do you use to drill
We use a contracter to do the drilling. Joseph walls hilltown county down. I haven't actually seen the drill. If we ploughed the land it would bring up massive big stones. Are area is very stoney. You are right about not sowing the clover get rid of the weeds then put the clover in. Keep up the great videos👍
use a clover safe spray
If you fill the roller with oil it will be heavier
the tyres on the tractor are probably too far in, you mentioned in another comment that they are 650s, too wide, the tyre shouldn't be much wider than the share, the edge of your first furrow should be in line with the inside of the tractor wheel, you should rather set the wheel to the plough rather than the other way round to pull straight.
arms should be free moving, no stabilisers, the arms are designed to pull an even load dead straight behind the tractor which is why you need to set the tractor to the plough.
if you don't use the correct tyre size and don't set them inline properly with the plough there is little to nothing you can do after to make the plough plough well.
Can you not get a clover safe spray
Great job,dare i say it u need rain now?😂😂😂😂
Got lots yesterday! 😅
So i’m sitting here on a Saturday evening suffering from PTSD from them shorts . Wtf were you thinking of. The last time you wore them was in Ibiza 1995 . 😅
Ps great informative video . Have a great weekend . pps did you see the weather from next Thursday onwards . Them fields will be green in no time .
I love my shorts. 🤣
Without giving away personal financial details, why do you think the optimum stocking rate is as high as yours? You spoke in previous video about your love for grazing but with a stocking rate so high you basically from a business point of view have a fully housed system hidden inside a grazing system
Higher the stocking rate the more profit. I would make more money housing the cows. I like grazing for the lifestyle benefits so try to do it and maximise profit
Why did you not plough across the way 😮
Ignore me, i have only ploughed in FS22 😂
I will pop over the water and you can teach me how to plough, looks good to me pal
Wet bit being drained isn't great to turn
Looking forward to next week's video: "How to reseed a field using min till"
It's coming, maybe 3 weeks time. 😅
shorting you top link
Alot of work you don't even have 1 stone in sight😂
Is that little jeep deisel or petrol?
Just wondering looks like a gand yoke...
Petrol. It's great! I love it.
What website did you use for the grass seed information
AHDB recommended list.
I know nothing about ploughing! Could you have ploughed both directions by going across the field rather then up and down?
When you plough out a grass field to bury the old grass you need to turn the furrows over as much as possible, if you ploughed across the side of the field the plough would struggle to turn the furrows over completely.
Stiched a field twice without spraying off , none of it grue.
Interesting!
@@FarmTheoryNI costly
From what i can see you're burying the trash well considering there's quite a lot of it.
here in England our government is trying to get farmers to use less fertiliser and make more use of organic forms of fertiliser including clover......i don't know what policys your government is pursuing but would you consider a lower stocking rate with lower inputs if your government wanted you to do that of course if there was financial incentive i suppose that might sway you to do things differently. i remember comenting a while back saying that if you use too much fertiliser on a wet year it pushes the grass on too fast.......it looks like thats whats happening this year......you could have cut the fertiliser down a bit and saved some money......if only we had crystal ball
I will follow the money. If the government makes my business significantly less profitable in its foolish pursuit of net zero I will just stop farming and the nation can starve.
Totally agree with you regarding the use of roller. Should never be used on grassland.
Clovamax post emergence spray (new this year)
Have had very good results with an erth direct drill for the last 5 years. Pulled a plough for years but sold it because I had enough stones picked!
Think you issues with plough is to broad tyre is squishing edge off previous furrow but im no expert
Few people told me that;
Why or how is rolling grass ground bad?
It hurts grass growth and yield.
@@FarmTheoryNI I’ve rolled grass ground all my life and so has my dad and granda. Obviously you don’t roll it with a world of grass on it
Grass roots need air, only roll once after reseeding and never again, unless you spread dung on a mowing field @@Rmac-eb2zb
Makes me want to get a plough and some rough ground and make the most heinous ploughing videos. Call it Plough Master or something, just pure rage bait.
Great idea! 🤣
@@FarmTheoryNI get a 2 for 1 and do some welding on the side.
Whats the benefit of your reseeding process over direct drilling. I have reseed quite a bit of ground with a erth direct onto a sprayed off sward. 6 weeks from sowing to grazing if sown around april 1st. I have rolled and not rolled after the erth. Unrolled grows better in the first year, then no difference
Compaction is the reason for the reseed, not to replace the grass
Why do you dislike clover?
First
Why not roll grass land
I hope NIElecrticity are compensating you well (£2,500/pa) for the use / infringement of your land 👍
I think it's £200/yr. I need to look into what it should be.
Why don’t you pre mown in front of cows
I will next time round, I need to make sure I have covers in 3 weeks, growth still sucks.
Something very wrong if a big lump of a tractor like that cannot pull a 4 furow plough up that hill
At 7kmh you're wasting alot of time and diesel with the devil's power harrow, be better off with a tine/disc cultivator if you can run at that speed
I agree, people get too anal about ploughing. It's the finish that's most important. Like building a wall, the plastering is most important. In your case, the harrowing & rolling 🤠
Ploughing the field perfect is the most important part I’m a dairy farmer and yes I have done some bad ploughing but when a neighbour came over one year and show me what I was doing wrong, from then on I always do a good job of my ploughing and it take a fraction of the diesel to make it ready, and sorry but you gave terrible advice and it shouldn’t be name how to reseed a field
Fair point indeed! I have got some good advice!
Oh dear 🤦 you need to get a ploughing lesson from @DrewsFarminLife😂😂😂
Then you wouldn't be bouncing around like a rag doll.🫨
Ploughing to break up compaction and then heavy rolling to make it rock hard, you can understand why some people are confused 🤔
I'm assuming while you are grazing these big covers you have paused the silage buffer?
Drone showed a bit of soil massaging has been going on in some of the other paddocks, I assume that's the over seeding video.
And those shorts 🫣😂🤣😂🤣