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Know How / Cultivation and drilling

News and user views on the latest cultivation techniques to optimise crop establishment, minimise environmental impact, improve soils and reduce costs through direct drilling, minimum tillage, conservation tillage – as well as traditional ploughing and drilling techniques.

Latest cultivation and drilling articles

CEREAL DRILLS

Vaderstad redesigns Seed Hawk no-till drills for Europe

Vaderstad is bringing its Seed Hawk no-till tine drill back to Europe, with a frame that folds to road legal proportions of just under 3m wide and 4m tall. The…

CEREAL DRILLS

Weaving launches low-cost Lynx tine drill

Evesham-based outfit Weaving returned to the halls of Hanover for the first time in a decade with a new min-till tine drill – the Lynx. It is a lighter, more…

CEREAL DRILLS

Ultimate Guide to buying a trailed combination drill 2024

Consolidation is the theme for this year’s Ultimate Guide to trailed combination cultivator drills – not in the soil-firming sense, but rather in the way manufacturers are sticking to tried-and-tested…

CEREAL DRILLS

Ultimate Guide to buying a direct tine drill 2024

Two drill ranges from New Zealand – Aitchison and Duncan – and Kverneland make their debut in this year’s Ultimate Guide to tine coulter no-till drills. As usual, the guide…

CEREAL DRILLS

Ultimate Guide to buying a direct disc drill 2024

Three new drill listings and additional models for existing ranges feature in the 2023 edition of Farmers Weekly’s Ultimate Guide to disc coulter no-till drills. New Zealand manufacturer Duncan appears…

CULTIVATION AND DRILLING

Tillage 2023: Kverneland, Kuhn and KRM launch new kit

Persistent rain at this year’s Tillage-Live event in Warwickshire gave the hardy souls who braved it a good chance to see how the latest cultivators and drills perform in sticky…

Cultivation and drilling reviews and tests

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CEREAL DRILLS

Driver's view: Matt Lewis’ Mzuri Pro-Til 3m drill

Farm foreman Matt Lewis talks about the Mzuri Pro-Til drill that he has owned for three years. Its purchase bought about a change in the farm's crop establishment system, which…

CEREAL DRILLS

Driver's view: Robert Hinchcliffe’s Triton drill

We asked Yorkshire farmer Robert Hinchcliffe to run through the good points and bad points of his 3m-wide Triton drill and explain why he picked it.  What drill are you…

CEREAL DRILLS

Direct drills revisited: 10m Dale Eco XL

This year marked a decade of Dale Drills at Whiting Ash Farms in Malvern, Worcestershire, and David Fellows sees no prospect of that changing in the future. His latest model,…

CEREAL DRILLS

Driver's view: John Hawkins' Simtech T-Sem drill

Simtech’s T-Sem no-till drill uses a disc and inverted T-shaped coulter to establish a crop without the need for any prior cultivation. We visit Dorset farmer John Hawkins to see…

CEREAL DRILLS

Direct drills revisited: 6m Virkar Dynamic DC

Two years on from its arrival at Ralph Castle’s 170ha Oxfordshire arable farm, the 6m Virkar Dynamic DC looks as if it could play a prominent role in finally getting…

CEREAL DRILLS

Driver's View: Weaving GD drill

Henry Muntz reveals how his Weaving GD no-till drill has performed across his farm of Warwickshire clay loam. What drill are you using? We’ve got a 4.8m trailed Weaving GD…

CEREAL DRILLS

Driver’s View: Jean-Baptiste Bady’s Claydon Hybrid 3m

Estate manager Jean-Baptiste Bady and farm manager Callum Orr, who run an arable operation at the world’s most northerly castle on the small central island of Shapinsay, Orkney, have picked…

CEREAL DRILLS

Direct drills revisited: 5m Cross Slot delivering 7 years on

Spending £120,000 on a 5m Cross Slot drill has proved a worthwhile investment for Suffolk farmer David Bird. The aim of switching to the system from a Vaderstad Rapid seven…

PLOUGHS

On test: Kverneland's new five-furrow 2300S plough

Decades pass with little change to the humble plough, so a raft of major updates to Kverneland's mid-range models was big news for buyers keen to turn a more consistent…

MACHINERY

Fertiliser drills: What are the options?

Why seed & fert? Power harrow drills Solo drills Disc & tine cultivation The technique of placing fertiliser at drilling time is moving out of its traditional stronghold in Scotland…

PLOUGHS

Video: On test - Hubert's seven-furrow plough

Late last year, Suffolk firm Agri-Hire agreed a deal to take on Dowdeswell’s engineering operation with a commitment to restarting plough production on a national scale. Dowdeswell folded last summer,…

CEREAL DRILLS

Direct drills revisited: 3m Triton aids blackgrass fight

Wet weather was halting harvest progress when we caught up with Robert Hinchcliffe to see how he was getting on with his 3m Triton direct drill. While adverse conditions can…

Cultivation and drilling buying advice

Cultivation and drilling insights and practical advice

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ROLLS

12m Cambridge rolls buyers guide: Options and prices

Crop establishment trends might come and go, but whatever the cultivation or drilling regime, there’s almost always a role for the humble Cambridge roll. Beyond the usual seed-bed consolidation tasks,…

CEREAL DRILLS

Ultimate Guide to buying a direct tine drill 2024

Two drill ranges from New Zealand – Aitchison and Duncan – and Kverneland make their debut in this year’s Ultimate Guide to tine coulter no-till drills. As usual, the guide…

SOILS

Top tips to achieve more resilient and sustainable soils

One of the most common questions for farmers relating to “soil health” is how best to measure it and monitor progress once they have embarked on a mission to improve…

CEREAL DRILLS

Ultimate Guide to buying a direct disc drill

For growers who prefer disc coulters for establishing new crops straight into arable stubbles or a green cover, there are plenty of options – including several newcomers – as this…

CEREAL DRILLS

Ultimate Guide to buying a trailed combination drill 2022

A couple of models have fallen by the wayside as others have come into the Ultimate Guide category for trailed full-width cultivating drills. These machines deploy tines or discs –…

EVENTS

Latest high-speed disc cultivators set to work at Tillage-Live

Designed primarily for shallow cultivation of stubbles, the short disc cultivator, has become an increasingly popular farming tool – and so the makes, models, features and options available have multiplied. Underlining their appeal,…

PLOUGHING AND CULTIVATION

Plough, min-till and no-till compared: year one

A major trial has been set up to find the most profitable and sustainable way to grow arable crops by comparing three different establishment systems over five years. Establishment systems…

MACHINERY

Video: Autumn drilling season captured from the skies

After the success of last year’s harvest drone video we have been out with the cameras again, capturing autumn work in all its glory, from above. Our drones have flown over…

DRILLING

Direct-drilling: Main findings from major five-year trial

Farming on heavy land in Leicestershire, Joe Stanley was skeptical that reducing cultivations by adopting a direct-drilling system would increase farm profitability and improve the environment. But after seeing the…

Refurbed farm machinery could save you money

Got an old Kuhn power harrow sat out among the stingers? Oliver Mark knows a man that can get it running sweetly and looking smart again, and it’ll cost less…

PLOUGHING AND CULTIVATION

How a new soil scoring tool picks the best cultivation option

A new crop establishment tool which assesses a range of soil management factors is set to help farmers identify whether a change in cultivation may benefit their soils. There is…

Cultivation and drilling technology

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CULTIVATORS

Case-IH introduces AFS Soil Command for cultivator

An automatic control system designed to ensure consistent performance from multi-element cultivators has been introduced by Case-IH in North America to help improve seedbed quality. See also: Tips on selecting…

ARABLE

Yorks farmer slashes fuel costs with variable-depth tillage

A more streamlined approach to "prescription cultivation" is promised with the introduction of a tractor-mounted scanner that enables variations in soil type and compaction depth to be identified on the…

CULTIVATORS

Topcon launches Norac-designed tillage depth control

Norac is well known in spraying circles for its boom levelling technology and now parent company Topcon has used the same principals to dive underground and develop a tillage depth…

TECHNOLOGY

Autonomous robots drill a 50ha maize crop

Controlled by an app, a French technology company has built three highly accurate robots that are cultivating, drilling and caring for a 50ha crop of maize, completely autonomously. The project…

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MACHINERY

Video: Autumn drilling season captured from the skies

After the success of last year’s harvest drone video we have been out with the cameras again, capturing autumn work in all its glory, from above. Our drones have flown over…

CEREALS

Video: Machinery highlights from Cereals 2018

The Farmers Weekly machinery team headed to the southern site for the annual Cereals show, this year at Chrishall Grange in Cambridgeshire. Although several machinery manufacturers scaled back their stands,…

PLOUGHS

Video: On test - Hubert's seven-furrow plough

Late last year, Suffolk firm Agri-Hire agreed a deal to take on Dowdeswell’s engineering operation with a commitment to restarting plough production on a national scale. Dowdeswell folded last summer,…

CULTIVATION AND DRILLING

Video: Grower builds cover crop broadcaster for £3,000

A farm-built broadcaster costing less than £3,000 has given James Hopkinson the opportunity introduce cover cropping as part of a "regenerative" approach to the arable enterprises he manages. The tractor-mounted…