No Till Drill Planting - Anyone?

Don't know how common it is, but it's possible. It's becoming a bigger thing in agriculture.
I know of quite a few rice farmers that no-till their rice.

There are small no-till drills that could easily get the job done for food plots though. Many of the Soil and Water Conservation Districts in LA have them available for rent. I think they are 8 feet wide.

Most of the guys who drill rice around us do it no till nowadays, or at least have the capability too. We went back to flying a lot of our rice though.

Farmers use it for several factors like less labor, erosion, etc. We did some when we had farmland.

I don’t see it being practical for food plots. For one thing, a no til drill is huge and heavy. I don’t remember exactly but seem to remember a lot of tongue weight (it’s been 20 yrs since we no tilled).

As for practical applications, it requires ample turning radius plus the tension on the planting disks could break if you hit roots, etc, in the woods.


EDIT: After reading the thread, I see there are smaller no til drill so maybe those would make it feasible.

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How is this accomplished?

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The basic theory behind this method is you push down existing vegetation with a crimper or Roundup. This conserves soil moisture at the time of planting. You plant your food plot with a no till drill and the breakdown of that existing vegetation fertilizes your seed. The problem is no till drills are extremely expensive, even for a small one. If you can find a co-op in your area sometimes they will rent out equipment like this. Because I don’t have access to a drill I’m going to try lightly discing, cultipacking and then planting this year. See how that works out.

I have a small garden and have watched numerous videos and have read a lot of articles on no till. The idea is that when you till, you break down the organic matter in the soil. The more and more you till, the soil drys out faster, you loose top soil to erosion etc. Dig a hole in your yard and take the soil and examine it then go to a wooded area that’s undisturbed with lots of leaves and organic matter, dig a hole and examine the soil. The wooded area the soil will absorb water much more quickly and retain the moisture. Also when you till the hell out of land when you plant and get a hard rain and the sun comes out it makes a hard crust making it hard for the seedlings to emerge, whereas if you had a lot of organic matter aka “good soil” the seedlings can pop out a lot easier.

No till drilling is a practice, it doesn’t have to be done with a no till drill. There is not much difference between a “no till drill” and a convention drill. The no till just has beefed up hardware that allows it to put more down pressure.

I’ve had really good stands of rye grass come up from “no tilling” with an old cheap conventional John deer drill. Right after the last cut of hay (the pasture is cut very short), we’d drill in the rye grass seed with it. Just have to crank the torsion springs tighter.

IMO For a food plot, you could mow the plot down as short as possible and then drill over it with a convention drill and get away with a good stand

I don’t want to call anyone out but to compare dirt in your yard to dirt in the woods has nothing to do with no till. Even when farmers utilize no till, they spray a “burn down” first to knock back the grass.

I’m wondering, someone help me out, if it can be done in rice stubble. Seems like I remember this being done with rye grass. Course, with rye grass you can broadcast it on top of the soil, overseeding, and it’ll grow- just much later.

Dirt in the woods is years of decomposition but I wouldn’t run a no til drill over several inches of leaves and expect much. The no til drill makes a small cevice in the soil that closes back almost as soon as the disk moves forward. In several inches of leaves I can’t believe the seed would even be in the soil.

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I’m wondering, someone help me out, if it can be done in rice stubble.

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It can. There is at least one farmer I know in St. Martin Parish that drilled straight into rice stubble this year.

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to compare dirt in your yard to dirt in the woods has nothing to do with no till.

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That was my thought as well, although I sort of got his point--more organic matter.

However, the problem with that is, regenerative agriculture isn't trying to mimic a forest. It's trying to mimic a grassland. That's the point of including diverse cover crop mixes in the rotation. The diverse root systems help build the soil. No-till by itself does not build organic matter. That was learned years ago after years and years of no-till, which is why soil health experts now push cover crops as well. No-till is simply one step in improving the soil structure. Without some kind of plant growing on the land 24/7/365, you aren't going to restore all of the biological functions of the soil.

That is also why I was confused by the "build the soil before you can no-till" comment, because the whole point of no-till/cover crops is to build the soil. Nutrients and lime don't build the soil, they improve a plant's ability to grow in that soil. I've seen data from guys doing no-till and cover crops that shows a significant decrease in fertilizer use because the CCs they were using amended the soil and made nutrients available that were already there.

He asked how does no till “build the soil”. If you disk or till the soil repeatedly, it looses its tilth. I watched a video of farmers in the Midwest that practice no till. They compared a sample of no till soil from 25 years of practice to soil that that has been filled every year. Placed both samples in a clear container and poured the same amount of water in both containers at the same time. The no till sample, the water quickly absorbed into the soil (where the roots are). The sample from the till plot took forever for the water to absorb. I’m not recommending no tilling a food plot in the woods with a bunch of leaves. I’m saying that the soil under those leaves will absorb a hell of a lot more water then grown that is bare or has been filled mainly because of organic matter that has not been disturbed, which is kinda what no till is anyway. Some deer reaearchers recommend planting rye grass during the winter then when late spring hits, crimp or push down the rye and no till soybeans into the food plot (organic matter from rye, retains moisture for soybeans to grow).