Cultivations

Unless you are on easy working soils our view is that you should avoid using the plough in the spring. This is in direct contradiction to some of our competitors but I doubt that many of them have the practical experience that we do of many years farming heavy soils. We have seen some competitors banging on about ploughing early, meaning as soon as possible after the shooting season. Ploughing early on heavy ground means in September/October so that the ground is ploughed dry and allowed to weather properly over the winter. Ploughing heavy land when wet, in February, usually creates all sorts of problems with the soil structure and means bashing it to death with the power harrow in April and May, thereby losing the all important soil moisture. Ploughing some sites may also create ideal conditions for soil erosion, a very serious issue for some farms.

We see far too many game crops failing because the soil structure is wrecked through cultivating in poor conditions with the wrong equipment. If the soil structure is poor it is less able to retain nutrients, creating a poor root zone and making it less able to support microbial life essential to a healthy soil.

Before carrying out any cultivation assess the soil conditions and consider the past crop. If it was very weedy then a lot of weed seeds will be present in the trash on the surface. If these are left on the surface they degrade in sunlight, rot in the wet and are eaten by birds, insects and rodents. Ploughing them under will induce dormancy in a percentage of the seeds which will then germinate when they are ploughed back up the following year. Many game crops are badly compacted but sub-soiling when the ground is at field capacity is a waste of time. Sub-soiling should not be carried out until the ground is dry. That might be just before final seedbed preparation in late April or May. The less you can do to the soil surface to create a seedbed the better. As long as the sub-soil has been loosened so that the crop can put down a good tap root, and the topsoil is fine enough so that the seed gets good contact with the soil around it, that is all you need.

Where there is too much trash and ploughing is essential our advice is to wait until the last minute before ploughing. You could spray off weeds that have germinated, plough, apply your seedbed fertilizer, work the soil to create a seedbed, drill and roll to retain the moisture. All of these operations could be carried out in a 48hr period.