Direct drilling for peas

Press, 10 December 1982, Page 22

Direct drilling for peas

Lincoln College staff were pretty pleased with results from direct drilling a crop of Pania peas for processing, Mr Graham Tate, supervisor of the college’s cropping farm, told a group of visitors on a farm walk last week. Subsequently it had been decided that direct drilling offered advantages and the college authorities had agreed to the purchase of a direct drill. Direct drilling would become a normal farming procedure on the irrigated parts of the farm. The biggest single cost on the farm was labour, and direct drilling was labour saving. As well, if there was another shortage of diesel, direct drilling would save fuel. Spraying with Roundup before direct drilling also helped control twitch and reduce the incidence of the disease take-all in wheat. The Pania peas were drilled on October 20, half the paddock by conventional cultivation methods and the remainder by spraying and direct drilling. Because of the uncertainty of how direct drilling of peas would go, they were sown at a rate of 400 kg per ha, compared with 300 kg per ha for the conventional method. The direct drilled peas had a count of 136 plants per square metre, representing 76 per cent of the amount of seed drilled, and the other half of the paddock had 180 plants per square metre representing 85 per cent. These figures showed that there was still a bit to learn about direct drilling, but staff were pretty pleased with the results, said Mr Tate.