Many growers made good progress with spring sowing before the return of broken weather again this week. We recently paid a visit to Cork Tramline farmer Rob Coleman, who was planting beans in excellent ground conditions.

Rob was sowing Fanfare and, for the first time, Lynx. He was sowing the crops with a new John Deere 750A no-till drill aiming for minimal disturbance. The overall aim of the farm is to progress from a min-till establishment system to a no-till system.

But in order to do this, Rob explains that they must experiment with a number of different establishment techniques and strategies, such as sowing straight into covers, subsoiling then sowing and minimum disturbance before sowing.

Rob is also partaking in the enable conservation tillage (ETC) EIP project looking at the wider adoption of sustainable conservation tillage systems in Ireland.

John Deere 750 Drill

Robs sowing outfit consists of a New Holland T7185 pulling a DJ 570A no-till drill.

“We’re very happy with the drill,” he says.

“It seems a very robust machine,” says Rob as he explains how each individual coulter is able to follow the ground.

As moving into direct drilling will be a learning curve, he needs a robust drill which is capable drilling into multiple seedbeds, ie stubble, cover, disced, grubbed, etc.

Watch the John Deere 750 drill in action below

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