REVIEW
1
the no-tillage soilution With an increasing emphasis globally on healthy soils, modern no-tillage seed drills are becoming of increasing interest to farmers and contractors. Farm Trader NZ’s Jaiden Drought had a look at the Novag T-Force Plus
Images by Jaiden Drought
T
he French-made Novag T-Force Plus champions the zero-soil movement, which aims to protect soil biology and prevent soil erosion and weed problems. Carrfields Machinery is the exclusive distributor for Novag in New Zealand and Australia, and believes low-disturbance notillage is the future for livestock and arable farming globally. I won’t get into the ins and outs of regenerative ag, as there are a lot of opinions on this – and I say, each to their own. I will, however, concede that some elements of the argument do stack up. Building carbon in the soil is important. The three things for me that make sense are: • We over cultivate. A lot of the time we cultivate for the sake of it. If you’re not developing land, growing fine root and seed crops such as beetroot or onions, then bashing the soil to a pulp is pointless. • Keep the ground covered. Cover crops help retain nutrients, increase soil water capacity, stop erosion and aid aeration. The general rule of thumb is to always have your land growing something and not fallow for more than a month. • Plant multiple species. This will give the soil the ability to uptake or utilise nutrient from the atmosphere or lock in the soil through different plant root depths and leaf design in the process of photosynthesis. Clover and multiple grass species with different heading dates are perfect examples of this
THE INVERTED T BOOT How the inverted T boot works is that, firstly, a large diameter notched disc in the middle creates the slot. An L-shaped blade with a carbide wing on each side of the disc creates a slot: one side for fertiliser, the other for seed (or two separate types of seed if you want). The disc itself can be either 20 or 23 inches (51 or 58cm), with seeding depth of the disc adjusted separately on winders above the press wheels. While adjusting individually is niggly if you want to do all of the coulters, it’s beneficial if you want to seed deeper in the wheel tracks of the tractor or sow maize deep and a clover cover crop (shallow) at the same time. The whole opener assembly itself weighs 100kg but ground pressure can be infinitely varied individually, thanks to hydraulic rams with max pressure of 500kg per coulter. All the rams are plumbed into a large hydraulic block where accumulators act as a suspension to allow the openers to follow the ground undulations without varying the downward pressure. Thanks to the parallelogram design, coulter travel is 450mm, which will take the most undulating terrain in its stride. Where this machine gets particularly high tech is the IntelliForcePlus system, which automatically adjusts the downforce on the move. Most of the time they work in
Looking for a seed drill? Search for ‘seed drill’ on TradeFarmMachinery.com.au or type the TA or DIY code shown here into the keyword search field
46 TradeFarmMachinery.com.au
FFM2102_394 editorial.indd 46
$47,500
TA868492
AITCHISON 4124CT. New direct drill min till combine with seed and fert. • QLD 07 3073 8164
$19,990
TA892481
2020 DUNCAN AG 2500/19. New Lina twin disc seed drills with fert box. • VIC 03 8373 7039
$22,165
TA1025619
2020 HISARLAR MIKSER 250. Power Harrow + Electric Airseeder. 2.5M. • VIC 02 6171 3175
THE TRACTOR YOU WANT IS NOW EASIER TO FIND
14/01/2021 1:05:33 PM
