It is important for today’s farmers to minimize the costs for crop establishment, because
of decreased prices and support from the EU. Farmers, who plow in autumn on heavy
clay soil, often do some kind of tillage in autumn to get better soil structure before
spring seeding. This is especially important when growing small seed crop, e.g. sugar
beet and oil plants. There is a lot of machine equipment to choose between. This work
compares experience from using heavy furrow press, harrow in autumn and knives
mounted on the wing and mouldboard on the plough. Included in the comparison are
regions that have heavy clay soil,, such as Skåne, Södermanland, Östergötland and
Västergötland. To get experience from this equipment, literature has been studied and
interviews have been done with machinery dealers, machine advisers and farmers in the
different regions
Small crop seed, as oil-plants and sugar beets, demands shallow and fine soil.
Emergence of seedlings is affected of how shallow and fine the soil is. When you have a
dry spring, it’s very important that the soil around the seed is fine to ensure
transportation of water to the seed, but it’s also important with coarser soil at the surface
to keep the moisture in the ground. The summery of the interviews shows that the uses
of furrow presses has increased in the middle of Sweden, but are still common in Skåne,
Harrowing in autumn are common in all areas. Knives mounted on the wing and
mouldboards are only used by few farmers.
The furrow press can not do the same work as a harrow, and it’s not always the best to
tillage the soil strait after ploughing. What you want is to break the furrow instead of
packing the soil. Harrowing in autumn gets the best tillage result, because the harrow
levels the soil and you will achieve the same soil moisture content all over the field.
Knives mounted on the wings and mouldboards can not make the same tillage as a
harrow but can make good results on clay loam. On heavy clay soil, the knives can work
as complement to the harrow or furrow press.
Harrow in autumn is profitable even if you have to do an extra cultivation. You can do it
on several occasions and during better conditions. The furr...
