Spring 2021 EN

Biogas Journal | Spring_2021 English Issue
zone Primera equipped
with coulter units for
no-till farming with a
working width of 6 meters
for sowing in drills.
The Semeato has a dead
weight of 3.5 tons. That
enables the twin discs
to penetrate the ground
in order to sow the seed
because the soil is partly
clayey and is hard during
the dry periods.
Schneider is planning to
technically upgrade the
seeders to plant the crop
in specific areas. All the
machines are equipped
with an automatic tire
pressure control system
to protect the soil.
The fertilizer spreader is only used selectively,
for example, for targeted application
of nutrients based on the Kinsey recommendations.
Otherwise, nitrogen fertilization,
apart from farm manure, is only performed
based on ammonium, mainly by
injection using the Cultan method. Schneider
gave up milk production with the
400 cows that were initially part of the
farm in 2018. Instead of that, he now has
an average of 700 heifers that are reared
for a large dairy farm in a region otherwise
dominated by arable farming.
Manure and dung out of the livestock production
are fermented in 900 cubic meter
(m³) fermenters in the small 75 kW liquid
manure system that was put into operation
in 2012. The annual yield of 8,000
to 9,000 m³ of digestate is applied to the
fields as grain top fertilization by slurry
injectors in the spring, or by means of a
strip-tilling unit, which creates a nutrient
depot under the subsequently sown row of
corn. This work is done by contractors. “I’m
currently looking for a service provider who
can apply liquid manure with a tube wagon,
that is, by means of pipes from the biogas
plant to the field. That would be feasible
on the fields near the farm, which take up
about half of the farm surface, and would
also be another way of reducing soil pollution,”
he says.
A sensitive issue of no-till farming is the use
of total herbicides. “The problem is not so
much the weeds,” says Schneider. He says
that he can handle that, as the absence of
tillage would significantly reduce the activation
of weed seeds. And a few things
could be done about the crop rotation. But
in order to plant cereals or maize in catch
crops, which are typical for no-till farming,
Glyphosate is indispensable for killing the
plant cover. He sees neither other means
that have a comparable effect, nor a practical
alternative procedure.
Crop rotation adapted to weather
conditions and the market
Schneider says that since he took over the
farm, he has been focusing on “returning
the soils to their natural balanced states
with the no-tilling farming system and restoring
the original biology”. His target is
to attain a permanent humus content of
5 percent. Although he has only achieved
this on part of his cultivated area, soil life
has considerably increased everywhere.
The now more biologically active limestone
weathered soils with loess overlays, that
have an average acreage of 50 but a range
of 20 to 100, would show more stress tolerance
and the yield variability would be
lower. On average, he gets 92 decitonnes
per hectare of wheat, 38 dt/ha of rapeseed,
90 dt/ha of winter barley and 45 tonnes
of fresh matter per hectare of silage maize
from the field. Compared with the harvests
in the region, that is in the upper fifth, with
lower operating costs.
“At any rate, you can`t rely on experience
gained in the area on weather development
anymore, not even if you take the large variations
into account,” says Schneider. He
says that only the capacity of the soil to
retain water is still effective, though this
is only of limited use during lengthy dry
periods.
Since no-till farming eliminates the need
for preparatory soil cultivation and the arable
land can often be driven over, even
in wet weather, Schneider can adapt the
crop rotation system to the weather and
the expected feeding requirements. He describes
the possible variations, using vetch
grown with rye –which is a mixture of winter
rye and fodder vetch – as an example: “If
the spring is very dry, I don’t harvest the
vetch grown with rye when it’s green before
the ears emerge in early May as is usually
done. I leave it untouched until June. The
established plants absorb the little water
that is available very effectively with their
extensive root systems and then
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